Knowledge In Translation: Global Patterns Of Scientific Exchange, 1000-1800 CE

Description

In the second millennium CE, long before English became the language of science, the act of translation was crucial for understanding and disseminating knowledge and information across linguistic and geographic boundaries. This volume considers the complexities of knowledge exchange through the practice of translation over the course of a millennium, across fields of knowledge—cartography, health and medicine, material construction, astronomy—and a wide geographical range, from Eurasia to Africa and the Americas. Contributors literate in Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Minnan, Ottoman, and Persian explore the history of science in the context of world and global history, investigating global patterns and implications in a multilingual and increasingly interconnected world. Chapters reveal cosmopolitan networks of shared practice and knowledge about the natural world from 1000 to 1800 CE, emphasizing both evolving scientific exchange and the emergence of innovative science. By unraveling the role of translation in cross-cultural communication, Knowledge in Translation highlights key moments of transmission, insight, and critical interpretation across linguistic and faith communities. Contents......Page 8 Foreword by Charles Burnett......Page 12 Preface......Page 14 Acknowledgments......Page 18 Introduction. Knowledge in Translation / Patrick Manning......Page 20 Part I. Mapping the Earth......Page 36 Chapter 1. The Geographical Concept of the Catalan mappamundi / Katrin Kogman-Appel......Page 38 Chapter 2. Interpretation, Intention, and Impact: Andalusi Arab and Norman Sicilian Examples of Islamo-Christian Cartographic Translation / Karen Pinto......Page 60 Chapter 3. Mountains of the Moon, Lakes in the Sun, and Sinus Gangeticus / Rila Mukherjee......Page 77 Chapter 4. The Global and the Maritime: Divergent Paradigms for Understanding the Role of Translation in the Emergence of Early Modern Science / Robert Batchelor......Page 94 Part II. Constructing Society......Page 110 Chapter 5. Charting China in the Thirteenth-Century World: The First English Translation of Zhu fan zhi and Its Recipients in China in the 1930s / Huei-Ying Kuo......Page 112 Chapter 6. The Case of Bingata: Trafficking Textile Art and Technique across the East China Sea / BuYun Chen......Page 136 Chapter 7. Mapping the Tracks of Yu: Yellow River Statecraft as Science and Technology, 1200–1600 / Ruth Mostern......Page 153 Part III. Advancing Health and Welfare......Page 166 Chapter 8. Animal Remedies in Space and Time: The Case of the Nail of the Great Beast / Irina Podgorny......Page 168 Chapter 9. Translating Heaven: Divination and Political Authority under the Yuan Dynasty / Francesca Fiaschetti......Page 183 Chapter 10. Between Local and Universal: Translating Knowledge in Early Modern Ottoman Plague Treatises / Nükhet Varlık......Page 196 Chapter 11. Transposing Knowledge: Beyond Translation in the Medieval Islamic and Japanese Medical Literary Traditions / M. A. Mujeeb Khan......Page 210 Part IV. Charting the Skies......Page 226 Chapter 12. The Nesting Hypothesis for Planetary Distances and Its Persistence over the Centuries and across Cultures / Bernard R. Goldstein and Giora Hon......Page 228 Chapter 13. Marāgha Observatory: A Star in the Constellation of Eurasian Scientific Translation / Roxann Prazniak......Page 246 Chapter 14. Reading between the Lines: Attitudes toward Arabic Astrology in the Latin Marginalia of Alcabitius’s Introductorius ad magisterium iudiciorum astrorum / Margaret Gaida......Page 263 Chapter 15. The Fourteenth-Century Transformation in China’s Reception of Arabo-Persian Astronomy / Dror Weil......Page 281 Chapter 16. Celestial Navigation: The First Translational Science / Pat Seed......Page 294 Notes......Page 312 Bibliography......Page 384 List of Contributors......Page 440 Index......Page 446