Mr Selden's Map of China by Timothy Brook ISBN 9781770893542, 1770893547 instant download

Mr Selden's Map of China by Timothy Brook ISBN 9781770893542, 1770893547 instant download

A fascinating work of history, biography, cartography, and literary mystery, Mr Selden's Map of China unlocks the secrets behind a recently discovered map of China like no other of its time.

In 1659, a vast and unusual map of China arrived in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was bequeathed by John Selden, a London business lawyer, political activist, former convict, MP, and the city's first Orientalist scholar. Largely ignored, it remained in the bowels of the library, until called up by an inquisitive reader. When Timothy Brook saw it in 2009, he realized that the Selden Map was "a puzzle that had to be solved": an exceptional artefact so unsettlingly modern-looking it could almost be a forgery. But it was genuine, and what it has to tell us is astonishing. It shows China, not cut off from the world, but a participant in the embryonic networks of global trade that fuelled the rise of Europe — and now power China's ascent. And it raises as many question as it...