The purpose of this book is to introduce in a short and simple presentation, a subject that is dealt with on so much larger scale , the encounter between the world and the West may prove in retrospect to be the most important event in modern history. It is an outstanding instance of an historical phenomenon of which there are other famous instances in the past, and the comparative study of the course and consequences of these encounters between civilizations that are one another's contemporaries is one of the keys to an understanding of the history of mankind. 1953 Oxford University press New York and London