| |  | Books : The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom |  | | | | | | | | | |
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 509.2
EAN: 9780060884598
ISBN: 0060884592
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: May 06, 2008
Sales Rank: 2797
Studio: Harper
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ('Elegant and scrupulous'—New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ('A mesmerizing page-turner'—Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.
No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair.
He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper—often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people.
After the war, Needham was determined to tell the world what he had discovered, and began writing his majestic Science and Civilisation in China, describing the country's long and astonishing history of invention and technology. By the time he died, he had produced, essentially single-handedly, seventeen immense volumes, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever.
Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great—related by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - compelling story
This wonderfully written biography of the British scientist Joseph Needham tells two stories - one of Needham as a "renaissance" man and the other of China and its amazing contributions to our world. Perhaps most compelling is the story of Needham and his love of China, of life, of women, and learning.
Simon Winchester writes gracefully and honestly.It was hard to put this down.
Rating: - wow
wo hen xihuan zhege gushi (I really liked this story)! Again a fascinating accountof a fascinating man forgotten by history.
Rating:  - Cashing on Beijing Olympics
Should have been called the Biography of Joseph Needham. And if it were, it would still be a poorly written one, though it would benefit from a more accurate title.
You don't learn about China enough in this book to appreciate the man or his work. I wanted to gleam about the wonder that is china. Failed there.
This book evidently was released with the primary reason of cashing in on the news item that China is in the wake of the Olympics. It hardly has anything substantiative ... Read More
Rating: - This is a fascinating story!
Joseph Needham was a bright, elegant, sophisticated scientist with an impeccable pedigree. His work in Cambridge was in biochemistry, a profoundly intense field, and he was a huge and influential success. He was a freethinking intellectual, however, who had predilections for both the decidedly base love of nudism and unique brands of folk dance. With this wide range of interests, he attracted a great deal of attention from colleagues and friends --- and, although married at the time, lovers as well. In ... Read More
Rating:  - Winchester's book-length author's bio of Needham and his opus shortchange both
Biography of Joseph Needham reads something like an extended review of his epic opus "Science and Civilization in China" (24 volumes to date, starting in 1954, and still in progress).Everything in the biography points to this life work, but then at the point when a more extended description and review of this manifold work is in order, Winchester steams to his finish with a chapter describing a political pothole Needham created for himself in the deepest part of the coldest-War McCarthy era, and then ... Read More
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom | | | |
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