Exiles and Expatriates in the History of Knowledge, 1500-20002017

"Discusses whether exiles and expatriates have made a distinctive contribution to knowledge"--Provided by the publisher.

In this wide-ranging consideration of intellectual diasporas, the historian Peter Burke questions what distinctive contribution to knowledge exiles and expatriates have made. The answer may be summed up in one word: deprovincialization. Historically, the encounter between scholars from different cultures was an education for both parties, exposing them to research opportunities and alternative ways of thinking. Deprovincialization was in part the result of mediation, as many émigrés informed people in their "hostland" about the culture of the native land, and vice versa. The detachment of the exiles, who sometimes viewed both homeland and hostland through foreign eyes,...