Book Club Roundtable Discussion:

Book: Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724, by Liam Matthew Brockey​

Venue: Garden Books

Time: March 26, 7:30-9pm

It was one of the great encounters of world history: highly educated European priests confronting Chinese culture for the first time in the modern era. This "journey to the East" is explored by Liam Brockey as he retraces the path of the Jesuit missionaries who sailed from Portugal to China, believing that, with little more than firm conviction and divine assistance, they could convert the Chinese to Christianity. Moving beyond the image of Jesuits as cultural emissaries, his book shows how these priests, in the first concerted European effort to engage with Chinese language and thought, translated Roman Catholicism into the Chinese cultural frame and eventually claimed two hundred thousand converts.

The book garnered enthusiastic praise among critics. "Journey to the East is fascinating and informative. The scholarship is meticulous ...". "It is an impressive work...Brockey manfully succeeds in painting a picture of the glories and pitfalls of the European Christian encounter with the enigmatic Chinese empire. "This book will be essential reading ...of early modern China or the 'first globalization' before 1800, and for everyone who likes to think about the convergences and contradictions of our own globalized lives."

Connor Bralla will moderate this book discussion. Connor is an aspiring historian and entrepreneur. He has lived in China since 2014, during which time he has been a teacher, a consultant and most importantly a perpetual learner. A longtime member of the RAS China, he previously served as a Council Member and the Book Club Convener.

We hope you will come and join us for the discussion.