Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
19th out of 170 books
—
65 voters
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
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 th...more
Hardcover, 316 pages
Published
May 6th 2008
by Harper
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
Joseph Needham
A man with a beautiful mind, one seemingly forged for the hard sciences - he worked in a college laboratory at Cambridge University specializing in embryology and morphogenesis - betrayed itself with that willful miscreant known as love, and in this case it was a love for China. Needham threw himself into the study of Chinese history and some thought at the time that he'd thrown away all he had to offer the world. But he provided them wrong, proved there was more in him than they'd...more
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 to skin a moo...more
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 to skin a moo...more
7 likes · like · see review
Feb 16, 2011
Andrew Georgiadis
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonfiction,
biography
Also known as "The Man Who Loved China" in American editions (because our versions are necessarily dumbed-down), this is the story of Joseph Needham's quest to understand an Eastern culture to which he was introduced in adulthood. A professor of chemistry and one with no official qualifications to undertake a work of rigorous history, he embarked on one of the most ambitious, lengthy, and meticulously researched pieces of scholarship in human history. At twenty-eight volumes and still in print,...more
4 likes · like · see review
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 unpleasant condescension toward the Chinese themse...more
4 likes · like · see review
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 about one o...more
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 about one o...more
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 the most likable of protagonist...more
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 the most likable of protagonist...more
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
We take our hats off to one thing we’ve seen
Your laundries keep our country clean
Chi...more
"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
We take our hats off to one thing we’ve seen
Your laundries keep our country clean
Chi...more
Aug 04, 2008
J.
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
..China Science & Culture readers...
Shelves:
bio,
period-travel,
history,
china,
asia,
empires-end,
east-west,
between-the-wars,
non-fiction,
travelers
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, arri...more
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 wa...more
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 uncovering Chi...more
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 uncovering Chi...more
A book about a man that wrote a book doesn't exactly sound like a formula for an entertaining work but Winchester pulls it off. It tells the story of Joseph Needham who spent his 90something years writing the definitive history of Science & Civilisation in China which he typed with 2 fingers. While it does read like a pop history book and has been consequently criticised on those grounds, it does filter a huge amount of information to a layman like myself. The fact remains that here is the s...more
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 Needh...more
This is a biography about a unique Cambridge scholar who recorded all the great inventions by the Chinese - including bombs, books, and compasses. This was revolutionary in a sense that he changed the world's view of China as a backward nation - in fact, it was far more advanced than others in terms of volumes and frequencies of innovation! However, the more intriguing part of this book is how Joseph Needham himself is an eclectic character who becomes intertwined with the politics of the time....more
I only started this book because I saw Simon Winchester as a banquet speaker at the New England Library Association Conference in 2009. He made the subject matter so compelling that I had to read the book, even if I had no previous interest in the subject matter whatsoever. The book was so successful, now I want to read the whole 30+ volumes of "Science and Civilization in China." There are so many poorly written, dull as dirt non-fiction books that when you find a historian who also happens to...more
1 like · like · see review
It's definitely an encouraging and proud experience for a Chinese to read this book and it is indeed amazing to recount the effort and achievements that Joseph Needham made on this path. It was a very eventful period of China's contemporary history to read about too.
However I was actually expecting, very curiously, to read the final answer that Joseph Needham, or the author of the book, gave or could give to the ultimate question he raised in the beginning. Though the author did explain a little...more
However I was actually expecting, very curiously, to read the final answer that Joseph Needham, or the author of the book, gave or could give to the ultimate question he raised in the beginning. Though the author did explain a little...more
A well-written biography of Joseph Needham, who traced the history of science in China and found a multitude of "firsts" in that country before scientific endevour seemed to suddenly stop in the 1600's, and much of the knowledge was "lost" until it was again developed (and claimed) in the West.
Needham was a brilliant but deeply flawed man, who found it possible to rationalise the excesses of Mao Zedong's communist party until the 1970's - despite the deaths of tens of millions of citizens up to...more
Needham was a brilliant but deeply flawed man, who found it possible to rationalise the excesses of Mao Zedong's communist party until the 1970's - despite the deaths of tens of millions of citizens up to...more
hmmm amazon has brought back their Big Deal, 500 ebooks at 85% off, and one can't go very wrong getting a big-6 published (Harper Collins, in this case) non-fiction history work at 1.99. well, it's 316 pages, less the 20% of the book that is the "searchable index" so popular to include with ebooks (obvious marketing trick, since most ebook readers permit searches in any case). I forgive. 250 pages at 1.99 is still less than .01c a page. the penny dreadful returns!
there's already a pretty profess...more
there's already a pretty profess...more
3 likes · like · see review
Pretty good popular press book on JN. It has a nice wowee-zowee rhythm to it, starting with the early narrative wherein Needham (in his first incarnation, a brilliant biochemist and embryologist) comes of age in interwar Britain and hangs out with lots of nutty leftists. Then you get to witness Needham's mania for discovering all of China's technological "firsts," in juxtaposition with his crazy adventuresome wanderings across wartime China.
Wish there had been more than two pages in the conclusi...more
Wish there had been more than two pages in the conclusi...more
Fascinating character but largely mediocre book.
Joseph Needham was clearly an incredibly insightful thinker with the child-like curiosity and enthusiasm of a great scientist. His early contributions to embryology rapidly elevated him to the Royal Society and election to a college in Cambridge. Then dalliance and war curiously morphed him into one of our foremost historians of Chinese science despite having no academic training in either Oriental Studies or History. Unlikely now, but proof that e...more
Joseph Needham was clearly an incredibly insightful thinker with the child-like curiosity and enthusiasm of a great scientist. His early contributions to embryology rapidly elevated him to the Royal Society and election to a college in Cambridge. Then dalliance and war curiously morphed him into one of our foremost historians of Chinese science despite having no academic training in either Oriental Studies or History. Unlikely now, but proof that e...more
Simon Winchester, author of the The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary, and of A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
The Man Who Loved China is, of course, about Joseph Needham, the man who loved not only China, but his Chinese mistress, but the book is also about the time of his infatuation (late 1930's), his research into science and...more
The Man Who Loved China is, of course, about Joseph Needham, the man who loved not only China, but his Chinese mistress, but the book is also about the time of his infatuation (late 1930's), his research into science and...more
A thoroughly entertaining background to the creation of one of the world's great series on the history of science, Science and Civilization in China by Joseph Needham.
I have a couple of Needham texts as research matter for the new world I'm creating. The sheer size of my own project is rather intimidating--as are the books I'd like to read in order to do it! So this book seemed like a good entry point. It almost immediately made me feel relieved about the magnitude of my own project. I'm just lo...more
I have a couple of Needham texts as research matter for the new world I'm creating. The sheer size of my own project is rather intimidating--as are the books I'd like to read in order to do it! So this book seemed like a good entry point. It almost immediately made me feel relieved about the magnitude of my own project. I'm just lo...more
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 Mandarin with...more
Needham was a polymath and learns Mandarin with...more
Aug 03, 2011
Julia
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Only Winchester die-hard fans
Recommended to Julia by:
Saw it on shelf in library
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 fault with this bo...more
1 like · like · see review
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 Chinese history....more
Doubtless, Needham was a great scholar and his research covered a very important period of Chinese history....more
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 occupied by Stephen Hawking.) He pr...more
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 occupied by Stephen Hawking.) He pr...more
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 the C...more
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 affair with a yo...more
Joseph Needham was undoubtedly a polymath skilled in biology and many other subjects but it took an affair with a yo...more
Mar 24, 2013
Cheryl Gatling
added it
What makes this story "fantastic" (as per the subtitle) is that Joseph Needham became one of the world's foremost experts on all things Chinese sort of by accident, and almost entirely on his own, driven by his personal, obsessive curiosity. The study of China was not his job. He was a professor of biochemistry. But when a pretty Chinese scientist showed up at his laboratory, he fell in love with her, and his life changed. (Needham was already married, but that didn't matter. His wife Dorothy ac...more
Winchester tells a compelling story of incredible curiosity. Joseph Needham, a renowned biochemist, discovers a deep connection with the history of Chinese science and technology. Despite the lack of the usual academic qualifications, he (nearly) single-handedly researches and writes the definitive (more than twenty volumes) work on the subject. In typical Winchester fashion, we learn about chinese history, technology, the war between China and Japan in WWII and Cambridge.
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 non-...more
1 like · like · see review
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Simon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel and his articles appear in several travel publi...more
More about Simon Winchester...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
May 16, 2013 11:43pm
May 18, 2013 07:20pm