Author ｜
Ye Yang-xi
Abstract ｜
Oka Senjin was a Confucianist scholar and Sinologist during the late Tokugawa and Meiji period. Mostly known to the academia for his Kanko Kiyū (Eng. Travel Reports for Sightseeing), Oka Senjin was also successful in history. He had not only completed some historical works, but also translated several books about western history by cooperating with others. There are four books translated by Oka Senjin nowadays, including American, Britain and French history and a biography of an Englishman. This article intends to discuss Oka Senjin’s translation of western historical events and persons in Chinese by investigating these books. Especially, more attention will be paid to Oka Senjin’s Meriken Shi and Furansu Shi to analyse the influence of western history in modern East Asia from the perspectives of book circulation and transformation of knowledge.
keywords ｜
Oka Senjin, book circulation, transformation of knowledge, sinology during the Meiji period, western learning during the late Qing period