De l’Orient à l’Ouest et aux Amériques

One aspect of Léon de Rosny’s personality, apart from his precocity and the thoroughness and inventiveness of his works, lies in his modernity. He set up an intercontinental network of scholars to implement an efficient exchange of information. Rosny was indeed ahead of his time when, a hundred and sixty years ago, he believed that scientific thinking is better undertaken through what is now called the Web. To validate out his initial postulate, he devised three tools and, from the very beginning, he expected to give them an international basis as learned societies, in order to generate new ideas and concepts and incubate them as the Société d’Ethnographie américaine et orientale. He also organized international conferences so as to challenge and exchange ideas and experience, such as the Congrès international des orientalistes as well as publications so as to capture and spread widely the results of these works, such as the Revue orientale et américaine and the Bulletin de l’Alliance scientifique universelle.