Orient Collection

The Orient is a historical term for the East, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Eastern world, in relation to Europe. It is the antonym of Occident, the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the continent of Asia, loosely classified into the Near East, Middle East and Far East: the geographical and ethno-cultural regions now known as West Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Originally, the term Orient was used to designate the Near East, and later its meaning evolved and expanded, designating also the Middle East or the Far East.

Territorialization of the Roman term Orient occurred during the reign of emperor Diocletian (284-305), when the Diocese of the Orient (Latin: Dioecesis Orientis) was formed. Later in the 4th century, the Praetorian prefecture of the Orient (Latin: Praefectura Praetorio Orientis) was also formed, including most of the Eastern Roman Empire, from the Thrace eastwards; its easternmost part was the original Diocese of the Orient, corresponding roughly to the region of Syria.

Over time, the common understanding of "the Orient" has continually shifted eastwards, as European people traveled farther into Asia. It finally reached the Pacific Ocean, in what Westerners came to call "the Far East". These shifts in time and identification sometimes confuse the scope (historical and geographic) of Oriental Studies. Yet there remain contexts where "the Orient" and "Oriental" have kept their older meanings (e.g., "Oriental spices" typically are from the regions extending from the Middle East to sub-continental India to Indo-China). Travelers may again take the Orient Express train from Paris to its terminus in the European part of Istanbul, a route established in the early 20th century.

In European historiography, the meaning of "the Orient" changed in scope several times. Originally, the term referred to Egypt, the Levant, and adjoining areas.[5] as far west as Morocco. During the 1800s, India, and to a lesser extent China, began to displace the Levant as the primary subject of Orientalist research. By the mid-20th century, Western scholars generally considered "the Orient" as just East Asia, Southeast Asia, and eastern Central Asia. As recently as the early 20th century, the term "Orient" often continued to be used in ways that included North Africa. Today, the term primarily evokes images of China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, and peninsular Southeast Asia. "The Orient" being largely a cultural term, large parts of Asia—Siberia most notably—were excluded from the scholarly notion of "the Orient".

Since the 19th century, "orientalist" has been the traditional term for a scholar of Oriental studies; however, the use in English of "Orientalism" to describe academic "Oriental studies" is rare: the Oxford English Dictionary cites only one such usage, by Lord Byron in 1812. Orientalism is more widely used to refer to the works of the many 19th-century artists who specialized in "Oriental" subjects, often drawing on their travels to North Africa and Western Asia. Artists as well as scholars were already described as "Orientalists" in the 19th century. In 1978, Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said published his influential and controversial book, Orientalism; he used the term to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the Arab and Muslim worlds, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries

Available Books

Book Title	Date
Travels in China	1806
Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission Vol. 1	1859
Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission Vol. 2	1859
Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine [Text-Vol. 1]	1873
Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine [Text-Vol. 2]	1873
Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine [Atlas-Vol. 1]	1873
Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine [Atlas-Vol. 2]	1873
Journal of a Residence in the Burmhan Empire	1821
The Ruins of Mandoo	1860
The Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon	1871
Asiatic Costumes	1828
The Costume of Hindostan	1804
The Costume of Indostan	1804
Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China Vol. 1	1864
Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China Vol. 2	1864
The Kingdom and People of Siam Vol. 1	1857
The Kingdom and People of Siam Vol. 2	1857
Voyage of the Barracouta to Japan, Kamtschatka, Siberia, China, etc	1859
Temples and Elephants	1884
Toonneel van China	1668
Our Trip to Burmah	1877
Eighteen Views taken at and near Rangoon	1826