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 enlarge | Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $14.93
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Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 1145
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0060884592
Dewey Decimal Number: 509.2
EAN: 9780060884598
ASIN: 0060884592
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
`The man departs - there remains his Shadow.' August 5, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book should be of interest to both those who are interested in remarkable individuals as well as those interested in the history of Chinese invention.
Joseph Needham (1900-1992), a biochemist with a bright future at Cambridge, became fascinated by Chinese language and history. The story of Joseph Needham, his determination and passion, his relationships, intelligence and eccentricity is interesting of itself. The fact that he turned his formidable investigative intelligence to uncovering China's history of invention has resulted in what is considered to be the greatest work on China so far written in the western world. However, this is still a work in progress and while its breadth is staggering its conclusions are not yet complete.
I am intrigued by Joseph Needham, but I am fascinated by his work in China. Fortunately, in this book, Simon Winchester provides a wealth of suggested reading as well as a list of Chinese inventions and dates they are first mentioned. The list includes: printed books ( 9th century AD); recognition of beriberi (1330 AD); magnetic needle compasses (1088 AD); explanation of camera obscura (1086 AD) and the accurate estimation of Pi (3rd century AD). In the interests of accuracy, some of the listed inventions (such as chess) are disputed.
I read most of Simon Winchester's books: I find his eclecticism energising. I would recommend this book to anyone who is seeking to know more about Joseph Needham and his thirst for knowledge of China. I would also recommend this book to anyone who is seeking more information about what was invented in China, and some understanding of the history and culture of this fascinating country. As to why China didn't make more progress earlier as a consequence of its amassed knowledge? That is an entirely different and even more challenging question.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
 good half a book August 3, 2008
the first half is good, if a little fawning. i mean, needham did have flaws, you know, like being willing to loot a country unable to defend its treasures. but that aside. the second half falls to filler such as going on about ted kaczynski attending one of needham's lectures on gunpowder, and needham's possibly/probably/maybe fictitious meeting with mao.
throughout it's pretty thin on the history and people of the times--it would be useful for most readers if some attention were paid to the major events and figures of that period in china's history.
finally, at the outset of the book, winchester dangles needham's own central question regarding china: why did china, after a long history of invention and innovation, fail to develop industrial technology? so of course one hopes that some answer will be forthcoming. but winchester doesn't return to the question until nearing the end of the book, and then declares it unanswerable. what a letdown.
if you buy the audiobook as i did, enjoy the plummy british accent up until needham leaves china, and then depart yourself.
A bit dry on the 'exciting' part August 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A comprehensive overview of Joseph Needham's life and contribution to China, its science and its civilization. A bit dry on the 'exciting' part.
I also recommend the 'The professor and the madman' by Simon Winchester.
 Unacceptable error - how many more? July 29, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
page 17: Discussing Needham's military obligations in 1918: "he was able, by the great good fortune of the war's coming to an end in August of that year, to make it into the university in October."
Now, the date on which World War I ended is perhaps the most famous date in all history - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, that is, November 11, 1918. Moreover, the months prior to the Armistice saw very heavy fighting, especially for US troops who had only started arriving in late spring of that year. There were in September major offensives at St. Mihiel and on the Meuse-Argonne line involving 300 US tanks and 500 US aircraft, there were major battles involving Italian troops against the forces of Austria-Hungary. Allied forces finally overran the Hindenburg line, Germany's last point of defense, in early October, but it took another month of hard, sanguinary fighting to finally force the abdication of the Kaiser (November 9) and the surrender of Germany which, as noted, became official at 11AM on November 11, 1918.
I am not very knowledgeable about Chinese history. If I read a book about that subject, I therefore must rely on the author's accuracy. How can I have any confidence in an author who gets so famous a date, a date so easily checkable, as the Armistice ending World War I wrong? Indeed, I at first thought I had misread the sentence - he couldn't get that wrong! - but there it was: "the war's coming to an end in August of that year . . ." The one thing that surely ended thereupon was my reading of this book.
 Sinophilia orgy July 23, 2008
38 out of 41 found this review helpful
I have decided to elevate Joseph Needham to the ranks of my primary heroes. That means he joins Vinegar Joe Stilwell (the American General who tried to teach Chiang Kai Shek how to run an army so that he might win a war; he failed, as you probably know) and Alfred Russell Wallace (the man who found that evolution works via natural selection, but had a marketing disadvantage to his colleague Charles Darwin; the theory is called Darwinism, not Wallacism, as you might know). Needham wrote close to 20000 pages on the history of Chinese science and civilization, he was a most amazing alround scientist. The 'book', or should we call it a library, is unsurpassed in his subject - but have you ever heard of it? I mean you, the non-expert on China. Let me know. I suspect very few people outside an inner circle ever heard of it.
Winchester has published quite a few books on diverse subjects. I mainly like his travel books: first a walk through South Korea, then a ship ride up the Yangzi. Given that he is an experienced travel writer, I am a bit puzzled by some of his geographical gaffes: flying over the hump from India to Kunming, the connection from British India to National China during WW2, W. claims the plane had to cross glaciers. Well, not likely. Better look it up on a map. Glacial melting can't have progressed that much since then. Or: Needham's first stop in China is Kunming, where he allegedly watches the sun set over the distant Tibetan hills on his first evening after arriving. Odd in view of the hundreds km distance from Kunming to Tibet and the fact that the city has its own hills to the West.
Apart from Needham's scientific formidability, he was also a prime specimen of British excentricity (they allow every excentricity in Cambridge, as long as it doesn't frighten the horses): a biochemist with highest distinctions early on, married to a brillant colleague, a freethinker, nudist, socialist, folk dancer, playboy, leftist activist, member of the left establishment, language genius, lay preacher (yes, he was also religious).
And then: he meets his lifetime love, a Chinese colleague from Nanjing (whom he will marry half a century later), who makes him learn the language. He manages to get an assignment with the Foreign Service during WW2 and moves to Chongqing in 43, as Counsellor to the Embassy.
That's the beginning of the end. The man starts researching and writing... 20 volumes? He is obsessed with Chinese history and goes on his decade long rampage.
As implied above, he was somewhat of a political fool, but it's hard for me to begrudge him that. Not everybody looked at it so generously though. For a while he had a key position in UNESCO, in charge of science (he put the S into UNECO), when Julian Huxley was the DG. The US pushed him out for his communist sympathies.
Worse was to come: he let himself be misused by China for Cold War propaganda in connection with the Korean War, as head of an 'independant' commission that was to investigate alleged US uses of biological weapons against Korea and China. From what is known today, no such thing happened, the whole show was staged by the Soviets and the Chinese, and Needham spoiled his name for years to come. He got blacklisted in the US for 20 years. He was just too naive and believed that everybody else was as honest and serious as he was himself.
One sad thing I learned from the book: the recent earthquake in Sichuan hit a place of magnificent historical importance, the great water works at Dujiangyan, built 250 BC, comprising dikes, dams, canals.
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