China was admired in Europe in the eighteenth century for its highly developed agriculture, its culture, exclusive craftsmanship and industrial products. A hundred years later the situation had changed. Chine was now considered as a stagnated and decayed state. In Europe the idea of the white mans superiority had appeared and Europe was colonizing large areas in Africa and Asia. Even China was threatened by this merging power. In Swedish schoolbooks from this time the description of China often is contradictory. The ancient culture still is admired but the contemporary China is looked upon as an impoverished and inferior country. The state of Sweden was subsidizing and controlling the publishing of schoolbooks. You could assume that the values expressed in the books were approved of by the authorities. At a time without media schoolbooks probably influenced the students´ image of the world.