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Jan 16, 2010

Trevor rated it:

Yet another fascinating book and story by a master. There is one thing you can say about Simon Winchester, he does like a good polymath and that love of learning and the learned shines through every page.

In a world where the next Vice President of the USA (or President if the Bible’s allotted three score and ten are anything to go by) could be someone who could more accurately be described as a polymoron – someone dangerously ignorant of just about everything except, obviously, how More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2011

Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch rated it:

A chatty, repetitive, but easily readable map of the life of Joseph Needham, a diligent weaving of what must have been many hundreds of notes into an often cinematic narrative with countless curious digressions along the way.

As with perhaps any biography though, I am left with questions, large and small. I’ll list four I cannot escape.

Before that however, I feel compelled to note the occasional and surprising instances of Winchester verging on unple More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Natali rated it:

Simon Winchester does the kind of research that could never be accomplished with a Google search. His work is layered and so impossibly thorough that reading his books makes me fearful that this kind of scholarship could become extinct with the quick-draw research that the net generation has become accustomed to.

The Man Who Loved China is about Joseph Needham, a researcher much like Winchester. In fact, it is very meta that one of the world's greatest researchers should write a book More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Leah rated it:

Once again, Simon Winchester lends his excellent research and story-telling skills to history - focusing this time on scientist/historian Joseph Needham and his creation of the expansive "Science and Civilization in China" - an encyclopedia of sorts of Chinese scientific accomplishment.

Though Winchester's writing is strong, I found the subject matter less rich than some of his other works. While "Science and Civilization" is an amazing achievement, Needham is not More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Kay rated it:

As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking of a Broadway tune written back in 1917 called "China - We Owe a Lot to You." Part of it goes:

"Chin-a , way out in Asia Mi-nor
No country could be fi-ner
Be-neath the sun.
You gave us silk to dress our lovely women in
‘Twas worth the price
And when we couldn’t get potatoes
You gave us rice
We mix chop suey with your chop sticks
You’ve taught us quite a few tricks
We never knew
More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

J. rated it:

Slightly rickety account of the remarkable 20th century life of Joseph Needham, Cambridge Master and author of the mega-sized multi-volume Science & Civilisation In China. In a wildly stormy life that veered from being a founding father of UNESCO to meetings with Mao & Zhou EnLai before there was a Peoples Republic, Mr Needham saw quite a lot. Needham was in a pivotal position during the many phases of the origin of Modern China as a British Foreign Office scientific representative, arriving in More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Meri rated it:

Joseph Needham was a top British scholar who traveled to China during World War II, where he conceived his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China. He spent much of his life trying to make the western world understand that China has a rich history of science and technological development. I enjoyed the descriptions of China during World War II, but the story of Joseph Needham--boldly nudist, essentially polygamist, and so passionate about his studies of China that he drove all over the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Jennifer (JC-S) added it

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 uncover More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Sandybanks rated it:

Ever since I picked up the condensed, popular version of Needham's book years ago, I've been curious about the man who wrote it. Now Simon Winchester provides us with the biography of the fascinating man behind the book, an eccentric Cambridge Don of prodigious intellect, an uncritical China lover, a playboy who spent most of his life in a menage a trois with his wife and mistress, as well as a comitted Catholic and socialist. The most interesting part of the book is the section describing Need More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Jack rated it:

We had just returned from a brief visit to Guangzhou and Schenzen in 2007 when I discovered Winchester's story of Joseph Needham. I was so enthralled by his saga, Cambridge professor who has an affair w/ a young scientist who escaped from Nanjing days before the Japanese invaded in 1935. Everyone at Cambridge knew about the affair, including his wife, and Winchester says it reflected the tolerant social and sexual atmosphere of the Cambridge dons.

Needham was a polymath and learns M More...

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Aug 03, 2011

Julia rated it:

Love Simon Winchester! He's the literary equivalent of PBS's Ken Burns: an incredibly deft interpreter of history, who makes each subject spring to vivid life for his audience. I would watch a documentary on literally ANYTHING Ken Burns decided was a worthy subject, and read the same for Winchester. He's a master of non-fiction writing, and if you haven't read his "Krakatoa, Or the Day the World Exploded," do yourself a big ol' favor and get it out from the library now. So, my fau More...

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Jul 24, 2011

Andrew rated it:

Wow, I've never read a book so quickly that I wasn't entirely engaged in. Winchester is a very smooth writer. Although I've never read any of his other books, I get the impression that he could make anyone's life story exciting. His ability to narratize relative non-events, like a trip to Dunhuang to discover what? That he just missed someone else who he likely would have gotten along with?

Doubtless, Needham was a great scholar and his research covered a very important period of Chi More...

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Jul 16, 2011

John rated it:

This turned out to be a nice choice for a road trip, although my mind wandered at times.
Joseph Needham was the author of most of "Science and Civilization in China," published beginning in 1954 and still with unfinished volumes when he died in the 1990s. I'm not likely to read all 15,000 pages of "Science and Civilization," but I think I'll settle for Simon Winchester's summary.
Needham was a Cambridge don in biosciences. (The rooms he had at Cambridge now are occup More...

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Aug 07, 2010

Judy rated it:

This book is the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, a scientist at Cambridge University. Needham is a scholar, teacher, Morris dancer, nudist, socialist or communist (he never officially joined either party), and expert on science and technology in Chinese history. While married and living at Cambridge, he began a life-long affair with a visiting Chinese student who taught him to speak, read, and write Chinese. During World War II, Needham spent several years in China and realized that th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 03, 2010

Paul rated it:

Simon Winchester is fascinated by eccentric intellectuals who contribute wonderful things to our world, whether dictionaries (as in The Professor and the Madman) or in the case of The Man Who Loved China, a thorough analysis of China's Science and Civilization. Winchester makes connections between the personal character and the obsessive projects these intellectual heroes pursued.

Joseph Needham was undoubtedly a polymath skilled in biology and many other subjects but it took an affa More...

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May 22, 2010

Leslie rated it:

Well, this was a very interesting subject and the writing was fine except for weird editing laziness where he kept introducing a bit of information like it wasn't already introduced. The book was enjoyable except for this strange feeling where I felt like the writer was afraid to just say something so passed it off quite passively like it was an afterthought or maybe a joke. Like he has these opinions he was too afraid to just say. Either say them or leave them out of what is supposed to be no More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2010

Rogier rated it:

Well it turns out that the biography of the man behind Cambridge's endlessly massive publications on Chinese Science and Civilisation (http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries....), is almost as fascinating as that book series itself. This is one of those books that one cannot put down. I ended up reading it from cover to cover without cease, which is a rare experience. More often I take 10 years to finish any one book. I seem to prefer reading in spurts. But this book is a page turner.

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Kris rated it:

I really like the other Simon Winchester books I have read including Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 and A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, so I had high hopes for this book. I wasn't completely let down, but it certainly wasn't his best.

One reason for this is probably the slightly less earth-shattering subject. When you compare this book, a biography of Joseph Needham, to oe of the biggest volcanic eruptions in re

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Aug 25, 2011

Virginia rated it:

I had never heard of Joseph Needham OR his epic work, Science and Civilization in China, before reading this. I only picked it up because of the author – I’ve liked everything else by Simon Winchester.

After reading this, I recognize the great contribution this guy made to science, especially in bringing information about China back to England, but I do not think I like him very much as a person. I definitely would not have liked to work with him. The dude was very smart, obvious More...

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Sep 23, 2011

Relstuart rated it:

I've read a few books about China, people from there, and people that traveled there. Few have really had the breadth of this book. Of course part of the reason for that is that few people traveled as extensively and loved China as richly as Joseph Needham.

There are things to dislike about Needham, politics, religion, and morals. But while these define a person in the grand context of China and Needham these things fade into the background.

Needham was the British Ambass More...

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Sep 30, 2011

Deb rated it:

Oh the stories of China that westerners simply don't realize. This is the story of Needham, an incredibly brilliant scientist at Cambridge who dedicates his life to studying and educating the world about China. Our 29th century understanding was a backward, often chaotic country. But, we did not realize that China had glorious centures of extraordinary creativity — including crucial inventions like gunpowder, printing and the compass,++++ all mistakenly thought to have originated in the west. More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Jbachelder rated it:

Ever heard of Joseph Needham? Probably not, though he almost single-handedly documented the history of cultural and scientific innovations in China from ancient times through the mid-20th century. Did you know that Gutenberg was not the first to print books? The Chinese did it several centuries earlier. This is just one of many discoveries Needham made when he traveled to China at the height of World War II. His unwavering enthusiasm for all things Chinese (thanks to his Chinese mistress) l More...

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Apr 28, 2011

Jrobertus rated it:

This book describes Joseph Needham's titanic effort to write the definitive book on Chinese science and culture. He was a biochemist, married to another biochemist at Cambridge in the '30s. He fell in love with a Chinese student and had an open marriage thereafter. They all worked together! He went o China as a scientific liaison in WWII and amassed a lot of friends and a lot of data about China. He returned to Cambridge and wrote this HUGE multi-volume opus. (I read the first one, and over More...

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Sep 19, 2010

Jim rated it:

The biography of Joseph Needham who was a biochemist at Cambridge and through his initial involvement with what became his life-long mistress, a Chinese national, developed an unusual affinity for the country of China. In learning to read and write Chinese before the war he was nominated to be the British envoy to aid China’s higher education remain viable during WWII. After traveling through the country visiting various institutions during the war he became fascinated with the history of scienc More...

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Feb 07, 2012

John rated it:

I really like Simon Winchester's work, and I enjoyed this one but not as much as "Krakatoa." A leftist Cambridge professor writing a huge series of books about China is simply not as interesting as a giant volcano. Not even really all that close. But the author does his best. I think the book was most successful in the first half, as Winchester recounts Needham's time in China during WWII, but it lost a little steam in the second half when he was back at home in Britain and just writin More...

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Jul 25, 2010

J. rated it:

We checked out several audio books from the library for our recent trip to North Carolina. This was the serious one we picked. (or I picked). Read by the author, which always adds a certain tone to non-fiction book like this. And certainly is helpful with all the Chinese names and words. An uncritical biography, to be sure, of one of those amazing English, eccentric polymaths that have created huge pieces of research. One review criticized the lists that took up a good part of the end of the bo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 28, 2010

Matt rated it:

Joseph Needham (the subject of the book) sounds like a brilliant, if unlikeable, guy. He mastered languages effortlessly, did very serious scientific research (including being a historian of Chinese science), and was a socialist in a kind of 17-year-old "everything should be fair" kind of way. But he was full of himself, thought people owed him something, and was completely out of touch with reality.

Part of that impression may be the fault of Simon Winchester (the author) More...

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Jan 16, 2010

Paul rated it:

Pretty interesting. Joseph Needham's work to set the record straight on China's contributions to science. It raises an interesting question (the Needham question) about why China stopped making significant progress in about the 16th Century.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2011

Leigh rated it:

what is amazing and worthy of the 5 rating may be more the story than the book. but since the book is what brings the remarkable life of Joseph Needham to the reader's attention so successfully, I am happy to give it a 5. Needham's life is certainly one of the more fascinating meetings of the personal (lifelong Chinese mistress -- in addition to an English wife) and the political (left-leaning and Communist sympathizer), not to mention the academic (brilliant scientist and researcher at Cambri More...

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Dec 28, 2011

carl rated it:

A history professor friend of mine gave me this book, as he'd
received 2 copies, with the intro that he had no interest
in the history of China, much less the history of technology
in China, yet he found the it fascinating.

Author Winchester does indeed tell a good tale, I'm certain
he could write an interesting yarn about grass growing. The
subject here though is the eccentric, brilliant, Cambridge
smartypants Joseph Needham, a fellow who More...

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