• Book Reviews
  • Slideshow Reviews
  • About Silash
  • Lessons from Fiction
  • Twitter Pics
  • Contact
  • Join Mailing List
Silash Ruparell

Simon Winchester: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)

8/1/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Blast Furnace was invented in China
Simon Winchester: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)

My one liner:
How a foremost biochemist became a foremost sinologist, and single-handedly created the Western world’s understanding of China, long before it became fashionable.

 15 May 1948. “Science and Civilisation in China.  Preliminary plan of a
book by Joseph Needham, FRS.  It will be addressed, not to sinologists, nor to the general public, but to all educated people, whether themselves scientists or not, who are interested in the history of science, scientific thought, and technology, in relation to the general history of civilisation, and especially the comparative development of Asia and Europe”.


Needham, a fellow, and subsequently, Master of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, went on to write Science and Civilisation in China, which is widely considered the foremost work on scientific development in China.  He himself wrote 15 volumes over the next 4-5 decades of his life, and further volumes have continued to be published following his death in 1995. Simon Winchester's book traces the life story of Needham and the path by which his work came into being.  And through that journey we learn much ourselves about a civilisation that for long periods of history has been far more scientifically advanced than the West. Far more, arguably, than wading through the blogs, commentaries and predictions spewed out by some of today’s “China watchers”.
 
And just as importantly we learn something about this remarkable man, and the potential of what can be achieved by human endeavour, application, determination, and an openness to foreign ideas and cultures. Needham was after all a specialist in biochemistry. In 1939, before he was 40, he published a book on morphogenesis which was acclaimed by a Harvard reviewer as “destined to take its place as one of the most truly epoch-making books in biology since Charles Darwin.” 
 
A committed socialist throughout his life, Needham was selected by Britain’s academic community at the start of the Second World War to go to China and assist with a programme of reconstruction of China’s academic and scientific institutions, following the devastation wrought by war with Japan. And from there he didn’t look back. Already familiar with the Chinese written language through lessons from his friend / colleague / lover / concubine / and eventually in 1989, wife, Lu Gwei-djen, Needham embarked on a relentless pursuit of knowledge about China. 
 
The appendix of Winchester’s book lists “Chinese Inventions and Discoveries with Dates of First Mention”.  Here are a few: Algorithm for extraction of square roots and cube roots: 1 AD; Ball Bearings 2AD; Blood, distinction between arterial and venous: 2BC; Compass, magnetic for navigation: 1111AD; Grid technique, quantitative, used in cartography: 130 AD; Melodic composition 475 AD; Numerical equations of higher order, solution of 13C
AD; Pi, accurate estimation: 3AD; Printing, with woodblocks: 7C AD; Rocket arrow launchers: 1367 AD; Soybean, fermented: 200 BC; Watermills, geared: 3C AD.  As Needham said: “The mere fact of seeing them listed brings home to one the astonishing inventiveness of the Chinese people”.

Written in the style of a novel, Winchester's book puts us into Needham’s shoes as he travels to the  what were at the time some of the most remote parts of the planet, for example his Silk Road journey, in a truck which was a converted Chevrolet ambulance.  As he visits academic institutions, government offices and archeological sites he assembles a collection of original papers and documents detailing every facet of Chinese scientific and technological progress, and on returning to Cambridge after the War, proceeds to catalogue these, leading to the 1948 book plan.

There is of course his personal life, sympathetically and empathetically described.   His devoted wife Dorothy, who is accepting of the open nature of their marriage, is a friend and confidante of Gwei-djen. Needham’s political views, bordering on communism in an age of McCarthyism, and his sympathies with Mao’s regime, lead to frequent run-ins with the political and academic establishment.  

But we are left with the enduring notion that the pure pursuit of knowledge, and the desire to open that knowledge to society at large through painstaking effort, prevails in the end.  That a scientist trained in the supposedly physical precision of Western enquiry can be so open to the ancient scientific traditions as the genesis of his work, is a salutary lesson for all of us:

“Heaven has five elements, first Wood, second Fire, third Earth, fourth Metal, and fifth Water. Wood comes first in the cycle of the five elements and water comes last, earth being in the middle.  This is the order which heaven has made.  Wood produces fire, fire produces earth (ie. as ashes), earth produces
metal (ie. as ores), metal produces water (either because molten metal was
considered aqueous, or more probably because of the ritual practice of
collecting dew on metal mirrors exposed at night time), and water produces wood (for woody plants require water).  This is their ‘father and son’relation. Wood dwells on the left, metal on the right, fire in front and water behind, with earth in the centre. This too is the father and son order, each receiving the other in turn...As transmitters they are fathers, as receivers they are sons. There is an unvarying dependence of the sons on the fathers, and a direction from the fathers to the sons. Such is the Dao of heaven”
From Chun Qiu Fan Lu, by  Dong Zhongshu 135 BC. Quoted by Needham in Vol II, 1956.

Here is the wikipedia link to the author.  There is no wikipedia entry for the book.
0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Silash Ruparell

    Reviews of books that I read in my spare time.  Enjoy.

    Archives

    November 2015
     - Ferdinand von Schirach: Crime & Guilt (2012) 

    October 2015
    - Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi: The Systems View of Life - A Unifying Vision (2014)

    September 2015
     - Danny King: School for Scumbags (2012)

    August 2015 
    - Erich Maria Remarque: Arch of Triumph (1945)

    July 2015
     - W. Somerset Maugham - The Painted Veil

    June 2015
     - John Julius Norwich: Byzantium, The Early Centuries (1988)

    May 2015
     - Anthony Price: Other Paths to Glory (1975)

    April 2015
    - Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley: The Emotional Life of Your Brain (2012)

    February 2015
    - Charles Neider (Ed): The Autobiography of Mark Twain

    January 2015
    - Paul Torday: The Girl on the Landing (2009)

    November 2014
    - David Eagleman: Sum - Forty Tales of the Afterlife (2009)

    August 2014
    - Simon Winchester: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)

    May 2014
    - Steven Strange & Jack Zupko (Eds): Stoicism - Traditions and Tranformations (2004)

    March 2014
      - Michael Dibdin: Vendetta (1990)

    January 2014
     - Matt Sinclair (Ed): The Fall - Tales from the Apocalypse (2012)

    September 2013
     - Edward Jay Epstein: Have you ever tried to sell a Diamond ? (And other
    investigations of the diamond trade) (2011)


    August 2013
     - Lessons from Fiction Part 3: The role of institutions in alleviating the poverty trap 

    April 2013
    - Emile Zola: L’Assommoir (The Drinking Den) 1877, Translation by Robin Buss (2004)

    March 2013
    - Margaret Atwood:Oryx & Crake  (2003)

    February 2013
     - Paul Auster: Sunset Park (2010)

    January 2013
     - Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea (1951)

    December 2012
     - Lessons from Fiction Part 2 - How Societies adapt to Disruptive Change

    November 2012
     - James Barr: A Line in the Sand (2011). And a nod to "Information is Beautiful"

    October 2012
     - Voltaire (1749 translation): Zadig or the Book of Fate (1747)

    September 2012
     - Leigh Skene: The Impoverishment of Nations (2009)

    August 2012
     - Steven Roger Fischer: A History of Language (1999)

    July 2012
     - John Dickson Carr: He Who Whispers (1946)

    June 2012
     - Matthew May: The Shibumi Strategy (2011)
     - Trevanian: Shibumi (1979)

    May 2012
     - Lessons from Fiction: Part 1 - A beginner's guide to convicting an innocent man

    April 2012
     - H. Woody Brock: American Gridlock (Why the Right and Left are Both Wrong, Commonsense 101 Solutions for the Economic Crises) (2012)
    March 2012
      - Jane Jensen: Dante's Equation (2003)
    February 2012
    - Amartya Sen: The Idea of Justice (2009)
    January 2012
    - Ian Morris: Why the West Rules...For Now (2010)

    Categories

    All
    Actus Reus
    Adam Smith
    Afterlife
    Alcohol
    Amartya Sen
    American Literature
    Anthony Price
    Apocalypse
    Attila The Hun
    Aurelio Zen
    Autobiography
    Babylonia
    Balfour Declaration
    Basque Country
    Brad Pitt
    Brain
    Buddhism
    Byzantine Empire
    Calouste Gulbenkian
    Carl Gustav Jung
    Cartel
    Charlemagne
    Charles Darwin
    China
    Cholera
    Cicero
    Constantine The Great
    Constantinople
    Criminal Law
    Cuba
    Dalai Lama
    Danny King
    David Eagleman
    David Lloyd-George
    David Mccandless
    De Beers
    Decimation
    Descartes
    Destiny
    Detective
    Dialogue Of The Deaf
    Diamonds
    Donation Of Constantine
    Dr David Audley
    Dr Gideon Fell
    Economics
    Ecosystems
    Edward J Epstein
    Emile Zola
    Energy
    Epictetus
    Erich Maria Remarque
    Ernest Hemingway
    Fat Boy
    Fate
    Ferdinand Von Schirach
    Fiction
    Financial Crisis
    Fiscal Deficit
    Fishing
    Flanders
    Fractal Mathematics
    François-Marie Arouet
    Franz Bopp
    Freeman Dyson
    French Literature
    Fritjoft Capra
    Gafin Principle
    Gaia Theory
    Game Of Go
    Genomics
    Geo Politics
    Geo-politics
    German Literature
    Giallo
    Great Wyrley
    Happiness
    Havana
    Healthcare
    Herbert Henry Asquith
    Hindenburg Line
    History
    Holistics
    Huckleberry Finn
    Huguenot
    Humility
    H. Woody Brock
    Ian Morris
    Identity
    Infographics
    Information Is Beautiful
    International Relations
    International Space Station
    Investment
    Iraq
    Isaac Newton
    Israel
    Jack Zupko
    James Barr
    Jane Jensen
    Japan
    Japanese Aesthetics
    Jean De La Bruyère
    Joe Dimaggio
    John Dickson Carr
    John Julius Norwich
    John Maynard Keynes
    John Rawls
    Joseph Needham
    Julian Barnes
    Julian The Apostate
    Justice
    Kabbalah
    Karl Marx
    Kenneth Arrow
    King Feisal 1st
    Language
    Lawrence Becker
    Lebanon
    Leigh Skene
    Leverage
    Life Outcomes
    Linguistics
    Locked Room Mystery
    London
    Margaret Atwood
    Mark Twain
    Martha Nussbaum
    Martial Arts
    Matthew May
    Matt Sinclair
    Max Brooks
    Meditation
    Mens Rea
    Mesopotamia
    Michael Arditti
    Michael Dibdin
    Middle East
    Migration
    Miscarriage Of Justice
    Moliere
    Mordecai Kurz
    Mother Company
    Mr Five Percent
    Murder
    National Patrimony
    Natural Resources
    Neuroscience
    New York
    Non Fiction
    Non-Fiction
    Oil And Energy
    Oprah Winfrey
    Palestine
    Parcae
    Paris
    Parsi
    Paul Auster
    Paul Torday
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Persia
    Philippines
    Philosophy
    Pia De' Tolomei
    Pier Luigi Luisi
    Plato
    Pont De L'Alma
    Population
    Poverty
    Proto Indo-European
    Psychology
    Purgatorio
    Qalys
    Quantitative Easing
    Quantum Mechanics
    Recession
    Religion
    Richard Davidson
    Richard Easterlin
    Rodney William Whittaker
    Roman Empire
    Sanskrit
    Sardegna
    Satellites
    Science
    Science Fiction
    Sharon Begley
    Shibumi
    Short Stories
    Silash Ruparell
    Simon Winchester
    Sin
    Snooker; Pool; & Billiards
    Social Realisation
    Sociology
    Socrates
    Spy Novel
    Steven Roger Fischer
    Steven Strange
    Stoicism
    Supernatural
    Sykes-Picot Agreement
    Syria
    Systems View
    Terrorism
    The Somme
    Thomas Malthus
    Thriller
    Trevanian
    Vampires
    Voltaire
    Water
    What Can We Learn From Fiction
    Winston Churchill
    World War I
    World War II
    W. Somerset Maugham
    Yin And Yang
    Zionism
    Zombie Banks
    Zombies

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.