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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
Buy New: $14.76
You Save: $13.19 (47%)
New (52) Used (26) Collectible (6) from $12.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 3948
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 China is once again emerging as a major player in the family of nations June 9, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
China is once again emerging as a major player in the family of nations. But certain questions have lingered with scholars and historians. Why did China, a nation which was so inventive and which experienced five thousand years of a flourishing civilization, fail to establish an industrial revolution similar to that of the west, thereby spending the decades of the 19th and 20th century mired in poverty, revolution, and instability? Joseph Needham was a respected Cambridge scholar and scientist who in 1937 fell in love with a visiting Chinese study and through his mistress became interested in her home country. By the time he died, Needham has authored seventeen volumes on China and cited by the academic community as a singular expert on Chinese history, culture, and society. "The Man Who Loved China" is the deftly written biography of a most extraordinary man and this flawlessly produced, complete and unabridged, nine hour audio book, written and read by Simon Winchester, provides an informed and informative story of an eccentric scientist whose dedication and meticulous scholarship explained the mysteries of China to the world. This superb CD audio book edition of "The Man Who Loved China" is highly recommended for personal, academic, and community library collections.
The Most Amazing Man You've Never Heard Of July 4, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
After hearing an interview on our local NPR affiliate with Simon Winchester, I bought this book in audio format in preparation for a long road trip. We were spellbound by this incredible story, listening almost non-stop to the 14 hour production. If you've never heard of Joseph Needham, don't feel bad - neither had we, or most anyone else I've asked. But he was one of the most interesting, eccentric, and brilliant people of the 20th century. The story is beautifully told by Simon Winchester, with anecdotes and historical background that amaze you. Such a detailed biography could stumble into confusing territory, but not in Winchester's skilled hands. The plot, Needham's life, unfolds in wondrous and surprising ways; I must have exclaimed 50 times "how could I not have known about this??" And the revelations about China are fascinating too - the remarkable history of an enlightened scientific culture, its slide into communism, and its economic resurgence. I strongly recommend this book.
 Unacceptable error - how many more? July 29, 2008
4 out of 9 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.
 Biography of a flawed intellectual, with little about China October 31, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought this book hoping to find out something about China, especially Chinese history. But the book contained very little about China; instead, I found the biography of an egomaniac whose scholarly work belies his inability to have any common sense in his daily life.
We hear of his journeys through China to seek for their historical knowledge, but we never see China itself.
We are told of all the times his car broke down, but except for Needham's annoyance, we don't learn anything else. (Was the terrain flat? Hilly? did it rain? Did they use sleeping bags or cots? Stay with foreigners or local hotels? How do car parts get transported into western China?)
He might as well have been traveling in Timbuktu for all the information about China in this part of the narrative. We never get the feeling of the people he meets,their families, or what they think, except of course for foreigners. Even when discussing his Chinese mistress, we learn more about Needham's ways of seduction than her family or background.
Then we have more unanswered questions on how he gathered his information.
For example, at one point, while stranded, he "interviews" a blacksmith and finds out a lot of information; yet we are not told any of this information on what the blacksmith is making, or how the blacksmith lives, nor of how his job fits into the culture, or even how they communicated (was the blacksmith of Western China fluent in Mandarin, or did he belong to the 50% of Chinese who speak dialects?)
The missing link in the story, as told by this author, is China herself.
We are expected to believe that Needham alone did all the works on his huge studies of China. We are supposed to believe this despite the various Chinese calliography styles over the last 3000 years, and despite his lack of knowledge of basic engineering or technology.
How much of his much acclaimed work was done by his Chinese mistress, or others, without attribution?
Finally, for a man who is praised for his intellectual curiosity, one is amazed that he didn't seem to notice the millions killed or jailed by the purge of intellectuals in the "thousand flower" time, the massacres of the "landlords", and the mass starvation of the great leap forward.
[...]
Which brings us to the "Needham question": Why did a China that had so many techological and scientific breakthroughs fail to follow them up to make them used by their society, and thereby fall behind the West?
Maybe because, like Needham and his snobbish university collegues, they were too busy being "philosopher kings" and superior to ordinary folks that they didn't think applying ideas to lower the burden of their inferiors.
So if you want to read a story of how a brilliant sociopath can be successful in the UK University system, read this book.
IF you want to read about China, wait for the Chinese to tell their own story.
He Had the Vision of What China Would Become May 30, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Winchester has done it again! He has introduced me, and I'm sure many others like me, to another fascinating individual. I thought that he had reached his apex when he exposed to the world Dr. W. C. Minor and Professor James Murray of "The Professor and the Madman" fame; however, the egocentric Joseph Needham is more than their equal in the sure to be best-seller, "The Man Who Loved China".
The book reads like fiction when one considers all that Needham achieved in his lifetime. He traveled thousands of miles to the remotest regions of China under the most perilous of times (WWII), collecting artifacts, doing research, and speaking at length with the inhabitants, many of whom were European missionaries, doctors, scholars, and scientists. During the years he spent in China, he intensely investigated China's inventiveness and contribution to the world's knowledge base.
Throughout the book, Winchester weaves the situations, events, and people that Needham encountered that led him to the conclusion that China had invented devices or discovered processes well in advance of those in the West. Appendix I cites many of these inventions and discoveries. The list is rather extensive.
At the time of his death at age ninety-four, Needham had essentially either single-handedly or under his watchful eye produced seventeen volumes under the banner title "Science and Civilistion in China', making him the most renowned authority on the Middle Kingdom. All this from an individual who was introduced to Chinese culture by his mistress and who was self-taught in the language.
If there is one drawback to the man, it is that, owing to the fervid love he had for the people, his socialist worldview clouded his thinking regarding the Cultural Revolution that engulfed China even to this day. He was duped on more than one occasion by the propagandists that preyed on the trust he had for fellow Chinese scientists who were nothing more, as it turns out, than agents of the state.
I wait in anticipation for the next person or persons that Simon Winchester brings to light. He definitely has an uncanny ability of chosing intriguing subjects that have interesting and unique backgrounds
and life styles, and most of all, have had a significant influence on world enlightenment.
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