What the British 'knew' about China changed fundamentally in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During this period, China became a key focus of British commercial and missionary interests, creating urgent demand for new knowledge about the country. This change in British understanding of and views about Chinese language, culture, politics and economy has typically been examined through the lens of a European history of ideas. This book demands that we pay closer attention to how British imperial networks in India and Southeast Asia were critical mediators in the British encounter with China. Knowledge of China was not simply developed by literati in Scotland and London, but also in the spaces of the East India Company in Asia, in a world of complex and competing political, academic, religious and trading interests. Created in Britain's Asian Empire, it played a critical role in British relations with China leading up to the Opium War in 1840.

ULRIKE HILLEMANNآ holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests include the history of ideas and cultural history of British imperial expansion in Asia and the development of universities in the context of European imperial expansion. She currently works at Imperial College London.