Beschreibung:

4 Bde (ohne den Ergänzungsband). 40, 647; 68 S., 3 Bll., 616; 59 S., 1 Bl., 587; 8 S., 1 Bl., 60, 372 S., 100 Bll. (Register). 2 Kupfertafeln. Gr.-8°. Pp. der Zeit mit Rückenschild (restaurierte Einrisse, etw. fleckig und bestoßen).

Bemerkung:

Erste deutsche Ausgabe. - Das Hauptwerk des Pariser Sinologen und Orientalisten Joseph de Guignes erschien 1756 unter dem Titel "Histoire générale des Turcs, des Mogols". ? Joseph de Guignes (1721 - 1800) succeeded Fourmont at the Royal Library as secretary interpreter of the Eastern languages. A "Memoire historique sur l`origine des Huns et des Turcs", published by de Guignes in 1748, obtained his admission to the Royal Society of London in 1752, and he became an associate of the French Academy of Inscriptions in 1754. Two years later he began to publish his learned and laborious "Histoire generale des Huns, des Mongoles, des Turcs et des autres Tartares occidentaux (1756-1758)"; and in 1757 he was appointed to the chair of Syriac at the College de France. He originated the proposal that the Huns who attacked the Roman Empire were the same people as the Xiongnu mentioned in Chinese records. This view was popularised by his contemporary, Edward Gibbon in Gibbon`s famous work "Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire". This proposal has been strenuously debated by central Asianists including Maenchen-Helfen, Henning, Bailey, and de la Vaissière. The Histoire had been translated into German by Dähnert (1768 - 1771). De Guignes left a son, Christian Louis Joseph who, after learning Chinese from his father, went as consul to Canton, where he spent seventeen years. - In Band 4 unter anderem: »Beweis, daß die Chineser eine Egyptische Colonie sind« mit zwei Kupferstichen sowie Autoren- und Gesamtregister. - Ohne den Ergänzungsband mit 68 Tabellen. - Etw. gebräunt und fleckig.