ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the Enlightenment's attitude toward things and the relation to human subjects in both its geographical inclusiveness and methodological approach. It offers a more encompassing perspective on what the eighteenth century looked like beyond British, or British-colonial, borders. This collection includes articles on geographical areas less considered in comparative studies, the consequences of the global circulation of collectibles for the emerging culture of the museum, or the role of exotica in shaping "imaginative" use Edward Said's term; it describes the mind's impulse "to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away". The articles collected in this book follow in close detail some of these trajectories, in an attempt to highlight patterns of similar or divergent trends, behaviors or themes that reconfigure the understanding of East/West binaries.
