Tribute and Trade

This volume of essays seeks to interpret cultural relations and individual encounters between Europe and China in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Because of the severe limitations on access to China imposed by the Qing government in the 18th century, 'Sino-European encounters in this period were mediated more by things than by people', as Kristel Smentek has remarked. The contributors to this volume look at how particular objects (gifts, books, tea, porcelain, paintings) mediated relations between China and the West. Examining cultural, political, and trade exchange from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, they explore how the objects, ideas, and values of each culture were both understood and misunderstood by the other. They also consider the often contentious encounters between the Europeans and the Chinese before and after the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, and the rare sociable encounters that took place, often counter to the official narrative.