Parallel Lives, Congenial Visions: Christian Precursors of Modernity in China and Japan

This book introduces the history of cultural exchanges between East Asia and the West through comparative biographical sketches of sixty personalities from China and Japan.

Leopold Leeb studied philosophy and theology in Mödling (near Vienna) and Chinese philosophy at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, and at Beijing University. He received his Ph.D. from the latter with a dissertation on the Han dynasty mathematician, astronomer and writer Zhang Heng. From 1999 till 2004 he worked as a researcher and translator at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since 2004 he is professor at Renmin University, Beijing, where he teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew, and the history of Western literature. His research also focuses on the history of Christianity in China. He has published widely in China, among others an introduction to the language and thought of the Bible, language courses in Latin, Latin dictionaries, a dictionary on Chinese theology and the series ＂English-Chinese Summaries of Western Classics,＂ of which volume 5 has been published 2020. Recently, he published the monograph One Dragon, Two Doves: A Comparative History of the Catholic Church in China and in Vietnam (2022).