The Exotic West

Peter Burke

• The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan Spence
  Faber, 350 pp, £15.00, April 1985, ISBN 0 571 13239 1
• Chine et Christianisme: Action et Réaction by Jacques Gernet
  Gallimard, 342 pp, frs 154.00, May 1982, ISBN 2 07 026366 5

To anyone with a sense of irony, the history of encounters between cultures is peculiarly fascinating, so often have the consequences been the opposite of what their initiators either intended or expected. The experience has befallen many political leaders who have tried to adopt the minimum of Western technology necessary to resist Western dominance. The process has also worked in reverse, however. Western missionaries who went east to spread Christianity tried to adopt the minimum of indigenous culture necessary to gain acceptance for themselves and an audience for their message. As they tried to adapt themselves and their doctrines to a new environment and a new language, they found themselves not infrequently accused by fellow Christians nearer home of having been converted by the very people to whom they were supposed to have been preaching the true faith.