Osterhammel ofrece una aproximación al pensamiento europeo y cómo este percibía Oriente en el siglo XVIII. Así muestra, por una parte, cómo la Ilustración fue todavía un movimiento paneuropeo en el que las diferencias nacionales todavía no marcaban posturas opuestas, mientras, por el otro cómo ese mundo observaba al Otro —y entre el Otro a los pueblos que habitaban el Oriente, que para ellos iba desde el norte de África hasta Japón; una visión que permitió la formulación de la idea misma de Occidente, que ya para el siglo XIX se manifestaba en términos supremacistas—. Interesante, aunque, en algunos puntos llega a ser disperso.

An exhaustively researched history documenting the Western perceptions of Asia during the Enlightenment. Osterhammel does a brilliant job documenting the ways that Orientalism and Western attitudes of superiority were gradually constructed. While the argument and evidence are impressive, the book is hampered by its narrative construction. There are no discernible character arcs. There are no national stories. As such, it is often difficult to follow and remember which scholars or adventurers did what and when. This book will likely serve as a scholarly foundation for a more narrative history designed for a wider readership.

You might think that history is about trying to understand some underlying truth, a reflection of reality that, once grasped, will let you predict other, bigger truths.

For example, simply knowing that America was originally colonized by Europeans from England would let you predict a whole set of corollary facts about the language, religion, institutions, skin color, and more.

But you could equally start with the insight that modern America was populated by people who were forcefully abducted and shipped here. That assumption would let you predict that today’s America would be full of people who  continue to struggle against oppression to this day.

Which definition of history is “correct”? Both cases have predictive power, both are abstractions that let you make more, follow-on forecasts about what the current world will be like.

Osterhammel’s book claims that the last fifty years of Asian studies have been dominated by people who have trouble recognizing the underlying reality of the history of European discovery of Asia.

So this book is an attempt to discuss Asia on its own terms, with extensively researched examples of various travelers and writers who discussed Asia in ways that left marks on European's attitudes about it to this day.