Beyond the usual suspects: on intellectual networks in the early modern world

This essay argues that any real and convincing form of ‘global’ intellectual history must necessarily be more than the familiar western European intellectual history writ large. Further, the purpose of bringing other parts of the world into the discussion cannot be simply to use them as a foil for a reflection on Europe, by looking for example at whether the Chinese courtiers who encountered the Jesuits in the Qing court of Kangxi (1661–1722) failed or succeeded in grasping the opportunities that were offered to them. Using the idea of geographical scale flexibly, the essay focuses on the idea of ‘intellectual networks’, drawing largely on examples from central and western Eurasia, and above all the Islamic world. The variety of sources in different genres that can be used, notably biographical dictionaries (or tazkiras), gives the exercise a particular richness in the world from the eastern Mediterranean to South Asia.