This book investigates how seventeenth-century French intellectuals engaged with and interpreted Asian cultures prior to the rise of formal imperialism and the Enlightenment. Nicholas Dew, a scholar of early modern intellectual history, utilizes archival research and the study of the 'republic of letters' to argue that these early Orientalist scholars were deeply embedded in the scientific and cultural shifts of the age of Louis XIV. He demonstrates that their work provided the foundational texts and methodologies that would later inform eighteenth-century European perceptions of the East.

Experts recognize this work as a significant contribution to the history of ideas, noting its meticulous archival research and nuanced approach to early modern scholarship. Readers frequently highlight the academic density of the prose, which serves as a foundational text for those studying the evolution of Orientalism.