The Mandate of Heaven

Strategy, Revolution, and the First European Translation of Sunzi's Art of War (1772)
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41449-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 26, 323 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 576 g

Reihe: Jesuit Studies

The Mandate of Heaven examines the first European version of Sunzi’s Art of War, which was translated from Chinese by Joseph Amiot, a French missionary in Beijing, and published in Paris in 1772. His work is presented in English for the first time. Amiot undertook this project following the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France with the aim of demonstrating the value of the China mission to the French government. He addressed his work to Henri Bertin, minister of state, beginning a thirty-year correspondence between the two men. Amiot framed his translation in order to promote a radical agenda using the Chinese doctrine of the “mandate of heaven.” This was picked up within the sinophile and radical circle of the physiocrats, who promoted China as a model for revolution in Europe. The work also arrived just as the concept of strategy was emerging in France. Thus Amiot’s Sunzi can be placed among seminal developments in European political and strategic thought on the eve of the revolutionary era.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Parr, Adam

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Revolutionen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Introduction

1The Context of the Translation

1.1The Military Enlightenment

1.2War and Peace

1.3The Suppression of the Jesuits

1.4The China mission

1.5The Standing of China at the Outbreak of the Seven Years’ War

1.6The Physiocrats

1.7The Correspondance littéraire

1Translating theSunzi

1The Texts

2Sources

3Approaching Translation

4Language Barriers

2Joseph Amiot’sSunzi

1Notes on the English Translation

2Preface by the Publisher, Joseph de Guignes

3Translator’s Preface

4The Emperor’s Preface to the Ten Precepts Addressed to Men at Arms

3The Thirteen Chapters on Military Art, a Work Composed in Chinese by Sunzi

Preface

1The Fundamentals of Military Art

2On the Beginning of the Campaign

3On What One Needs to have Thought of Before a Battle

4On the Positioning of Troops

5On Skill in the Leading of Troops

6On Fullness and Emptiness

7On the Advantages to Be Secured

8On the Nine Changes

9On the Conduct of Troops

10On Knowledge of the Landscape

11On the Nine Types of Terrain

12Guide to How to Fight with Fire

13On How to Make Use of Dissension and Sow Discord

4Interpreting Amiot’sSunzi

1Utility

2Science, Art, and Perspective

3Grande science and Grand Art

4La Doctrine: The Way

5Benevolence

6A Second Reading

5Postscript: Strategy and Revolution

1Responses to the Art Militaire

2Henri Bertin’s Correspondance Militaire

3Strategy

Appendix 1: Joseph Amiot’s Letter to Henri Bertin, Beijing, September 23, 1766

Appendix 2: Amiot’s Life

Family Background

Education

A Jesuit in the Kingdom of France

Journey to and Arrival in Beijing

The French Mission

Early Years (1751–64)

The Appeal of Chinese Music

Amiot’s Scientific Research

Amiot’s Contact with European Academies

Amiot’s Major Period of Writing

The Abolition of the Society of Jesus

Writer, Translator, and Correspondent

Further Research into Chinese Music

Later Years

Final Works: Chinese Dances and Scientific Research

A Major Shock: The Impact of the Revolutionary Upheaval in France

Amiot the Missionary

His Network of Contacts

Other Works

Ethno-linguistics

History

Science

Art

Portraits of Amiot

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Adam Parr is a professor at the University of Western Australia. He read English at the University of Cambridge and received his PhD at University College London. His doctoral thesis was on the translation of classical military theory following the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).