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The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
by: Simon Winchester

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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: 1806
Studio: Harper

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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: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- China and Cambridge
A very readable and excellently researched and written account of the life, adventures and discoveries of the Cambridge don, Joseph Needham

Rating:

- Fascinating book of captivating man
This is a fascinating book about a person I had never heard of. Joseph Needham was a brilliant British scientist who made significant contributions to biochemistry while still in his early twenties. He was also a boisterous character -- a nudist, progressive Christian, committed socialist, Morris dancer, fluent in several languages and believer in open marriage. Above all, he was full of energy and intellectual curiosity.
The turning point in Needham's life came when he met a young Chinese scientist, Lu Gwei-djen, in 1938. He not only fell in love with her, although he'd been happily married to a fellow scientist for several years, but made the decision to learn fluent Chinese. Lying in bed together, she was his first teacher. This led Needham to his life's work, the compilation of a huge, multi-volumed work on the history of science in China which transformed the way the world looked at Chinese history ... Read More

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 account of a fascinating man forgotten by history.

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