Ritual objects included foreign shapes among the traditional Chinese forms.
Finishes in white porcelain, three-colour pottery and figurines, stoneware with a rich black glaze, and a type of celadon all were developed by Tang potters; and, in keeping with the general interest in things foreign, their wares were often in foreign shapes and followed foreign motifs.
I spent a few years during my early cooking career trying to force ingredients into new forms and foreign shapes.
From the first century, when Buddhism entered China, the foreign religion shaped Chinese philosophy, beliefs, and ritual.
And foreign policy shapes presidential legacies: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam; Jimmy Carter and the Camp David accords and the Iranian hostage crisis; Reagan and victory in the Cold War.
Conversely, two sections devoted to "The Invention of Paris" show how foreign artists shaped the image of Paris in the world.
One essay, "Was Democracy Just a Moment?," which enumerates the problems of a foreign policy shaped by a yearning to spread American values, is a model of clearheadedness.
But from Afghanistan to the Arab Spring, from China to counterterrorism, the lessons of that war still hang over the administration's foreign policy — shaping, and sometimes limiting, how the president projects American power in the world.
Since its independence in 1993, it has projected an aggressive foreign policy, shaping events in the Horn of Africa, though it has only five million people and is one of the poorest countries on earth.
Public awareness about foreign aid shapes what our politicians say and do, and combined with actions to make our voices heard, it can have a big impact.
