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| The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom | 
 enlarge | Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 2015
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Hardback 76 - Copyright 2008, excellent book, new, speedy delivery
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| Customer Reviews:
 China On My Mind May 27, 2008
17 out of 36 found this review helpful
This book will be of value for those with a special interest in China, but to my thinking is not a great biography, although one of a quite interesting English scholar.
The author tends to hero-worship his subject to the point of painting 1950s America as a darker place than 1950s China. (Professor Needham was a devoted friend of Red China and got into some trouble for siding with North Korean allegations of U.S. biological warfare during the Korean War.) The real lack of political freedom-- setting aside stark comparisons of state-caused domestic body counts--was a far, far grimmer matter in the PRC under Mao than in the U.S. under Ike.
On another point of historical fact, Simon Winchester on page 213 states that Beria "had almost certainly been involved with Stalin's murder..." I do not think it has been proven that Stalin was murdered (although he certainly, of anyone, would have deserved such a fate.)
good read but incomplete biography May 31, 2008
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
Winchester's life of Joseph Needham is indeed well written, but we still need a full and more knowledgeable life of Needham. Winchester is good on Needham's sex life and its role in his initial love of China (discretely avoided in most academic discussions of his work), on his early travels in China, and on the controversy about his accusation that the US used germ warfare in the Korean War.
However, Winchester's account says little about Needham's early scientific and historical work in biochemical embryology (perhaps thinking it irrelevant to his China studies).(This topic is discussed in Haraway's book Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology.) Needham had an organismic and historical view of developmental biology, combining an interest in modern scientific techniques with process and holistic views of reality. This organismic view of science fit well with the approach of Chinese traditional thinkers toward reality.
Needham's philosophical interests also played a role in his recognition and appreciation of the traditional Chinese approach to science.
Needham's association with the British Marxist biologists J. D. Bernal and J. B. S. Haldane is touched on in a sentence and a footnote. (See Gary Weskey, The Visible College: A Collective Biography of British Scientists and Socialists of the 1930s" for a discussion of Needham in relation to Bernal, Haldane, Hogben, and Levy, all British Marxist scientists of the period.) Also omitted is the dramatic story of the surprise visit to London by plane of a dozen scientific superstars led by Nikolai Bukharin (about to be purged along with the plant geographer Vavilov) and the effect of their talks in inspiring Needham. (See Science at the Crossroads (Social history of science, no. 23) or the reprint of the central paper at this conference, Boris Hessen, "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia.") Needham said he heard "the trumpet blast" of their notion of a truly social and political history of science. No explanation is given by Winchester of the aspects of Marxism and process philosophy as philosophies of nature that were congenial with Needham's sympathy for traditional Chinese visions of nature. There is a non-reductionistic materialism or naturalism which recognizes levels of organization and development and a process view of nature in Marxism.
Needham also found the process view worked out in the logician and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical process philosophy, which emphasized the role of feeling throughout nature and the replacement of substances (enduring objects) with a vision of reality in terms of events and processes. Unfortunately Winchester neglects these conceptual roots of Needham's reconstruction of the Chinese vision of nature.
Likewise, Winchester does not discuss the political controversy upon the publications of the earlier volumes of Needham's magnum opus that ensued from Needham's Marxism. For instance,an early review of C. Gillispie, leading historian of science, attempted to discredit Needham's claims about the amazing technological and scientific discoveries the early Chinese made by claiming that Needham's Marxism makes his historical claims untrustworthy Chinese Communist propaganda. Gillispie presumably was later embarassed by this erroneous accusation.
Finally, Winchester has very little discussion of the involved historical controversy about Needham's explanation of why the Chinese did not develop modern science, despite being far ahead of the West in technology and natural history observation until at least 1500. Winchester dismisses this issue by saying that now China is industrializing and developing modern science. True, but the issue of why China didn't develop experimental and mathematical science back in the early modern period while the comparatively backward Europe did is still a puzzle. Needham's explanation involves the role of individualism (tied to atomism), capitalism, and formal legal systems (which Needham claims were metaphorically and practically extended in the later middle ages to the notion of laws of nature -- for instance in the court trials of animals) in the West which were largely lacking in China. The Mohists, or followers of Mo Tzu were the only ancient Chinese group that held a causal, mechanical, and analytical view of nature similar to that of western science. The Mohists were craftsmen and military engineers, and their philosophy along with their religious and political movement disapeared with the centralization of China under the First Emperor. This sort of social explanation also smacks of Marxism or at least of Max Weber's sociology of rationalization, which may be why Winchester doesn't discuss it.
(See my The Holistic Inspirations of Physics: The Underground History of Electromagnetic Theory for a discussion, among other things of the currents of Chinese philosophy philosophy of nature and their contrasts and similarities with strands of western philosophy and three approaches to the sociology of China as explanations for the dominantly holistic Chinese approach to nature.)
`The man departs - there remains his Shadow.' August 5, 2008
13 out of 14 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
 The Man Who Loved China, and People Who Love Books May 19, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Winchester is to the world of nonfiction what Steinbeck is to fiction. His writing is lush and literate with people and places described in both the letter and spirit of their reality. My book club has selected a Simon Winchester book the last two years and, "The Man Who Loved China" will be recommended for next year.
In, "The Man Who Loved China" Winchester paints a picture of Joseph Needham that is at once three dimensional and larger than life. From the first paragraph you know that the book is going to be pure Winchester and pure enjoyment. But, and this is the most intriguing part of this book, Needham's love for and insights into China--its history, culture and science--distilled for us by Simon Winchester are instantly relevant to the news coming from China today.
Whether you love China, are intrigued with Joseph Needham, or enjoy the superlative prose of Simon Winchester, this is the book for you.
Superb history in the Winchester way May 27, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Simon Winchester's forte is creating a microscopic view of events. They may be great events, like the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 or events that but for his eye might have slipped unnoticed into the annals of history, like the story of the madman and the Professor.
With this story of the life and work of Joseph Needham, Winchester once again works his very special magic. Without Winchester, it is most likely that only a diminishing number of academics would know of Needham at all, much less the results of his work, a comprehensive history of Chinese scientific acheivements.
Instead Winchester tells us the story of an extraordinary, eccentric Englishman who became a Professor at Cambridge. A socialist, if not a Communist, Winchester married, but agreed with his wife that their relationship would be open. Thus, Needham added to the relationship a Chinese mistress who was a part of his and his wife's lives for the next 50-some years. It is his mistress, Gwei-djen, a competent scientist in her own right, who awakens in Needham an interest in China.
Needham's interest in China - he taught himself to write and speak Mandarin - brings him an appointment in WWII to go to China and be a liason between British and Chinese institutions of learning. Bear in mind that much of China was occupied by Japan at this time.
Needham did much more than was requested of him and the result was ther idea of creating a masterwork that would record the history of China's scientific invention, which was much greater and impressive than was commonly believed in the West at the time. Thus began Needham's multi-volume masterpiece which is still considered a classic today.
Winchester's genius is first being able to spot the seed of a good story, in this case acquiring a single volume of Needham's "Science and Civilisation [sic] In China". Next is Winchester's ability and willingness to research, which has been evident in all his books. It is indeed the glue that makes his compelling stories possible. No detail is to small, apparently, to escape Winchester's scrutiny. One can only imagine how much Winchester is forced to leave out. Finally, Winchester is a superb, mellifluous writer. He is one of the few today who can (and does) use almost archaic or very rarely used words properly to make his point. Unlike the poseurs writing in some magazines, Winchester uses the words properly and not merely in an attempt to impress.
It is remarkable that Winchester was able to fully describe Needham's life in a mere 265 pages. Other authors might have taken several hundred more, but Winchester has a laudable economy of style.
Joseph Needham was certainly a very interesting man who led a very interesting life, but without Simon Winchester, Needham most likely would have slipped into oblivion in the not very distant future.
I have few criticisms of this book. I found one editing error in the book, a near-miracle these days, where Winchester refers to the use of chopsticks in China for the past thirty decades. I believe the reference may have been intended to be to centuries, not decades. Next, in describing Needham's politics which were unabashedly left-wing, Winchester makes his own views apparent, which I felt was out of character for him and inappropriate to the book. These are small issues and do not detract from the book as a whole.
Overall, "The Man Who Loved China" is a fantastic history of an extraordinary man written by a truly competent author. Very much worth reading.
Jerry
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