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China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China

China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China* robert finlay The University of Arkansas ong before the death of Joseph Needham in 1995 at the age of L ninety-four, his Science and Civilisation in China was acclaimed as one of the monumental achievements of twentieth-century scholar- ship. One reviewer greeted the first volume in 1954 by declaring that Needham’s project represents “perhaps the greatest single act of his- torical synthesis and intercultural communication ever attempted by one man.” When the twenty-eighth and last text in the series comes out sometime in the next ten years, the volumes will provide an ency- clopedic survey of Chinese achievements in almost all areas of science and technology—physics, astronomy, metallurgy, chemistry, botany, agriculture, biology, language, geology, ceramics, and sericulture. * A version of this paper was presented at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, in April 1999. I am grateful to Ethel S. Goodstein, William H. McNeill, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable suggestions and criticisms. I wish to thank John Moffett, librarian of the East Asian History of Science Library at The Needham Research Institute in Cambridge for graciously allowing me access to materials in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of World History University of Hawai'I Press

China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China

Finlay, Robert,
Journal of World History , Volume 11 (2) – Oct 1, 2001
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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-8050

Abstract

China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China* robert finlay The University of Arkansas ong before the death of Joseph Needham in 1995 at the age of L ninety-four, his Science and Civilisation in China was acclaimed as one of the monumental achievements of twentieth-century scholar- ship. One reviewer greeted the first volume in 1954 by declaring that Needham’s project represents “perhaps the greatest single act of his- torical synthesis and intercultural communication ever attempted by one man.” When the twenty-eighth and last text in the series comes out sometime in the next ten years, the volumes will provide an ency- clopedic survey of Chinese achievements in almost all areas of science and technology—physics, astronomy, metallurgy, chemistry, botany, agriculture, biology, language, geology, ceramics, and sericulture. * A version of this paper was presented at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, in April 1999. I am grateful to Ethel S. Goodstein, William H. McNeill, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable suggestions and criticisms. I wish to thank John Moffett, librarian of the East Asian History of Science Library at The Needham Research Institute in Cambridge for graciously allowing me access to materials in

Journal

Journal of World History – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Oct 1, 2001

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