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The Foreword to this special issue of Itinerario describes the historical questions that inspired the Global Sea Routes project, from which the essays in the issue derive. It then illustrates the particular sources used in the project, namely logbooks, specifically those of the English East India Company, whose characteristics and interpretation problems are briefly presented. Then, it illustrates the digital tools used in the analysis of those sources and to obtain the digital graphic and cartographic representation of the research results; and finally, it introduces each individual essay contained in the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the mid-1770s onwards there was a clear shift in perspective in the way European commentators looked at China, a subject that, especially in an era defined by Paul Hazard as the crisis of European consciousness, had long appealed to Western culture as both a cognitive and more generally an intellectual challenge. The contrast between sinophilic and sinophobic attitudes, which often characterized the evolution, even temporal, of the eighteenth-century perception of Chinese reality, cannot alone explain the shifts in interest and changes of opinion that occurred towards the end of the eighteenth century. What this contribution aims to highlight is how, in some key observers of and commentators on China between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century - from Adam Smith, Abbé Raynal and Denis Diderot, to Lord Macartney and John Barrow - one can detect perspectives and reflections that cannot be due to a simple descriptive register or to attempts at apologia or devaluation, but rather to approaches tending to include China in global comparative historical or socio-economic reasoning. And how, with that reasoning, the assumption of the superiority of the European model leads to China being seen no longer as a mere object of admiration or a source of inspiration, but as a new actor with a new role in global history. The discourse thus tends to take on, in various ways, prescriptive overtones, aimed at identifying the internal and external changes necessary for the part that, from a Western perspective, China could play in a connected world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, as a consequence of the increasing intercourse between China and the West, private collections of Chinese arts and crafts by European residents in China are growing. Diplomats, officials, merchants take these often-impressive collections back home to embellish residences with prestigious and attractive decoration. In the 1820s and 1830s such collections are transformed by entrepreneurs into public exhibitions or itinerant museums of Chinese material culture, for educational and commercial purpose. After introducing English Dutch and American examples, the article focuses on the case of Italian globetrotter businessman Onorato Martucci. On his return to Rome after a multi-year residence in China, he brings with him a vast assortment of Chinese objects and set up a public exhibition to promote knowledge of the Chinese world and sell the collection. The article also reconstructs Martucci's writings as a passionate popularizer of the reality of the Chinese empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes its cue from Antoine Lilti's book, L'héritage des Lumières (2018) and retraces the themes dealt with by the author with the intention of describing the central problem areas in the culture of the Enlightenment. The author's reflection focuses on the issues of Western economic and colonial expansion and the conflictual nature of the commercial civilization of the West, highlighting how European Enlightenment - the analysis focuses on French culture and, subordinately, Scottish culture - has shown a lively awareness of the problems of contemporary globalization and the demands it has subjected ethics, the vision of history, the conception of society and political power, religious ideas. These phenomena have influenced the development of a cosmopolitan attitude, paradoxically divided between acceptance of diversities and eurocentrism that is, in its contradictory aspects of recognition of the variety of human cultures and of universalistic tension, aimed at affirming the superiority of the values of the white, expanding West and the historical, almost messianic necessity of their global spreading. The article then dwells on the problems of modernity and politics, the other two central aspects of Enlightenment reflection as it is retraced by the author of the book: modernity as the development of a public media communication dimension and as a profound change in the space of private subjectivity; and politics as a space for the affirmation of rights and freedom in which the role played by the intellectual has been experienced by the Enlightenment in a conflictual and contradictory way, between challenge of and cooperation with powerful absolute sovereigns. The final part of the article dwells precisely on how the return to the Enlightenment has represented in various historical periods, as an inspiration for the critical use of reason, doubt and subjective engagement, a necessary moment for the redefinition of the tasks of intellectuals in the face of the conflicts of contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870," by historian Christopher Alan Bayly, is presented. Topics discussed include Northern India in the 18th and 19th centuries, social aspects of parental relations in the country, the country's social and political history, colonial historiography and periodization.

The article reports on the history and meaning of World expositions, with specific reference to Milano 2015 World exposition that will be held in Milan, Italy. It discusses how these expositions help nation-building and the processes of globalization. It also discusses the participation of Christian Churches at the colonial and international exhibitions.

The article reviews the book "Impero, imperi. Una conversazione," edited by Raffaele Romanelli.

This essay explores the several questions raised by the growing political and administrative presence of the British in India in the second half of the eighteenth century. It tries to connect them to the general context of the debates on European colonialism, its forms and its consequences, not only in the specific perspective of British politics with regard to India but also in terms of some of the basic problems faced by Enlightenment culture with reference to themes like empire, conquest, colonial dominion. The essay tries to elucidate the ideas emerging in the British and European debates out of the necessity of dealing not just with theoretical issues but with practical duties of government and administration in cultural settings entirely different from the European ones. The contributions elaborated in particular in Great Britain and France from the 1770s onwards delineate an approach revealing the sensibility to what can be termed the ‘rule of difference’. This expression is used here not in the polemical sense given to it by postcolonial historical, political and social analysis (the idea of difference or of ‘otherness’ as a convenient shield for negating rights and liberties to dominated, colonial countries), but in order to point out the perception of the complexity of ruling a colonial empire, between modernisation and respect for local traditions. Résumé: Cet article se penche sur plusieurs questions soulevées par la présence britannique en Inde dans la seconde moitié du dix-huitième siècle. En mettant ces questions dans le contexte des débats sur le colonialisme européen, ses formes et ses conséquences au delà du contexte local de la politique Britannique en Inde il met l'accent sur les thèmes problématiques des lumières tels que ceux de l'empire, la conquête ou la domination coloniale. Cet article tente d'élucider les idées émergeantes dans les débats Britanniques et européens du fait de la nécessité de confronter non seulement les questions théoriques mais aussi les choses pratiques de la gouvernance de terres étrangères. Les idées élaborées principalement en France et en Grande Bretagne à partir de 1770 révèlent une sensibilité pour une loi de la différence. Cette expression n'a pas ici de connotation polémique telle que celles données par l'historiographie post-coloniale, politique ou sociale (une idée de relativisme et d'altérité qui permet de nier les droits et les libertés des peuples dominés) mais afin de démontrer comment les complexités de la gouvernance de l'empire colonial menaient à une hésitation entre modernisation et respect des traditions locales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the state of information technology as applied to historical studies in the Italian context. Survey of Italian historiography in the world wide web; Historical on-line resources; Electronic publications.

An introduction is presented in which the editor announces that the journal is celebrating 30 years of publication, that they are changing publishers, and that a subscription renewal notice is included at the end of the issue.