A Sketch of Chinese History, Ancient and Modern

Abstract

Remarkable yet controversial, the Prussian-born Protestant missionary Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803–51) sought to spread Christianity in the Far East. A gifted linguist, he sailed to Siam and worked on translating the Bible into Thai. The British missionary Robert Morrison had fired his interest in China, and Gützlaff later focused his evangelising efforts there, learning several dialects and distributing translated literature. He also worked for the East India Company, notably serving as an interpreter during negotiations for the Treaty of Nanking. Also reissued in this series are his Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China (1834) and China Opened (1838). The present work, published in two volumes in 1834, aimed to diminish Anglophone ignorance of China's vast history. Volume 2 traces events since the beginning of the Qing dynasty in 1644. Gützlaff then discusses Christianity's introduction and other foreign influence, chiefly the commercial activities of European powers.

Biography and the Making of Transnational Imperialism: Karl Gützlaff on the China Coast, 1831–1851

“…In his Sketch of Chinese History, published in 1834, he argues that 'compulsion' is 'the only reasonable way of gaining advantages'. 39 This was very much in line with the British China merchants' campaign for a more aggressive policy towards China in the wake of the Napier incident. 40 However, in China Opened, published in 1838 and very much the sum of his voyages and studies on Chinese geography, politics, society and culture, he expresses his hope that sooner or later, an amicable and very extensive intercourse, founded upon mutual advantage, will be established; so that man may converse with his fellow-man, without being stigmatized, and called by opprobrious epithets, and denied admission because he is a foreigner.…”