Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644. Teresa Canepa

摘要

In recent years, the literature on the global aspects of material exchanges has increased significantly. From the earliest treatments of the subject in the 1990s, which focused on trade and consumption (Consumption and the World of Goods, 1993) to more recent surveys of the circulation of one material (The Pilgrim Art, 2010), many attempts have been made to form a universal picture of the global movement of things and the impact of encounters with them. Perhaps the most ambitious approach is that taken in a new book by Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer (2016) which attempts to provide a universal narrative of the trade and circulation of Asian goods in the West during the eventful period 1500-1644, which coincides with the later part of the Ming dynasty in China (1368-1644).