Michael Edwardes (1) (1923–)

This book was published 45 years before its time. Had it been published now, it would be getting 4 and 5-star reviews as the subject of East-West influence and the travel of ideas, arts and inventions is a topic that is just coming to the forefront--witness all the recent museum exhibitions on China Mania, Japonisme; the rise of new 'Trade' galleries in national galleries; and publications such as [b:Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane|17847856|Lost Enlightenment Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane|S. Frederick Starr|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1416180927s/17847856.jpg|24981549].

Despite a long search on the author (Michael Edwardes) I can find little about him, but on the basis of his extensive and excellent works on India (which I first started reading 30 years ago), and my recent discovery of this purchased-long-ago-but-forgotten-until-now work, he was an individual of rare intelligence and knowledge that encompassed East/West, Asia, Europe, travel, art, cartography, philosophy, literature.... He and Joseph Needham (author of the greatest compendium on knowledge of the Chinese world--[b:Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 1: Introductory Orientations|326804|Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 1 Introductory Orientations|Joseph Needham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348775546s/326804.jpg|317445]) would have enjoyed one another's company.

What ambition to take on such a topic and attempt to introduce it in a mere 200 pages, but Edwardes succeeds beautifully. It hints, it gives events & names, then provides tantalizing, amazing specific examples not found elsewhere (or long forgotten), drawing the reader deeper and deeper into wanting to learn more, pursue a topic, enter subject matter too long left at only a superficial level.

Subject matter covers not just Francis Bacon's obvious 'magnetic [compass], gunpowder and printing' but art, literature, architecture, language ... and examples range from the now long-recognized Greek influence on Gandharan representations of the Buddha to how Christianity's early hidden meetings influenced its art. How Japanese woodblock prints (kuniyo-e inspired European and American artists to try new techniques and perspectives and colour palettes (one of the hottest topics today).

In 200 pages, one learns that the source of the double-headed eagle that one sees on Crusader heraldy started "life on Hittite monuments in remote antiquity, passed through the badge of the Seljuk sultans of Persia early in the twelfth century, to become the blazon of the Holy Roman emperors less than two hundred years later" (p. 60). I discovered the source within these pages of the famous drawing of Europe's belief in cotton's origin (sheep growing on stems) when the source of cotton was still unknown in the west (byssus and the bibliography referred me to an article now available on line by H. Lee from 1887 on this remarkable "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant"). That the unusual design on the fabric of Jesus' robe in Giotto's portrait of "The Raising of Lazarus" is Kufic script--an Arabic decorative motif that entered the vocabulary of European art (p. 64). That because the Koran had been given in written form, printed copies were not accepted in the conservative Islamic world until 1825. I was reminded that Italians built bell towers back home, inspired by the minarets they saw at Central Asian trading posts. My pencilled notations of such contacts covers the inside front page of this remarkable book with just the right balance of generalisations and specific examples to engage any intellectually curious mind for years to come following the historical breadcrumbs scattered before us.

Its ONLY shortfall is it's 45 years old, and recent discoveries in archaeology (and especially marine archaeology) that would have brought the book up to date are missing. The books is also marred (but only very slightly) by its Cold War period birth, but these few paragraphs and pages are easily slipped over. Who wouldn't re-write a work that they closed in 1971? That said, Edwardes was decades ahead of the world back in 1971 to realise that one day the world would catch up with him in his awareness and understanding of the uncountable ways in which ideas and their manifestations have been exchanged.… (més)