Orientalism in Louis XIV's France

Before the Enlightenment, and before the imperialism of the later eighteenth century, how did European readers find out about the varied cultures of Asia? Orientalism in Louis XIV''s France presents a history of Oriental studies in seventeenth-century France, mapping the place within the intellectual culture of the period that was given to studies of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese texts, as well as writings on Mughal India. The Orientalist writersstudied here produced books that would become sources used throughout the eighteenth century. Nicholas Dew places these scholars in their own context as members of the "republic of letters" in the age of the scientific revolution and the early Enlightenment.