Jean-Baptiste Du Halde

Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (Chinese: 杜赫德, Pinyin: Dù Hèdé; 1 February 1674 – 18 August 1743) was a French Jesuit historian specializing in China.

Voltaire said of Du Halde's work: "Although it is developed out of Paris, and he hath not known the Chinese, [he] gave on the basis of the memoirs of his colleagues, the widest and the best description the empire of China has had worldwide.

From 1711 to 1743 he oversaw the publication of Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, written from Foreign Missions, by Jesuit missionaries in China, published in 34 volumes ranges between 1703 and 1776.

Drawn from the Jesuit Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses and unpublished reports containing translations of Chinese texts of various origins, Du Halde's Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political, and Physical Description of the Empire of China and Chinese Tartary appeared in Paris in four volumes in 1735; it was reprinted in the Netherlands the next year[2] and translated into English as The General History of China two years after that.

[3] Besides a very detailed geographical description based on work by the Jesuits, the book gave encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of Chinese civilization: the emperors and the government; the military and police institutions; the nobility; agriculture and handicrafts; the "genius," "glory", and appearance of Chinese religion, ethics and ceremonies; science and medicine; money and commerce; the language and writing system; the production of porcelain and silkworm breeding.