Customer Reviews

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

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This well researched and very readable book describes Joseph Needham's quest to show the inventiveness of the Chinese people by documenting in detail their early inventions, many made centuries before their reinvention by Europeans. The number and breadth is nothing short of astonishing. It puts to rest the ridiculous claim by some western politicians that invention can only occur in a free society. One of the themes is the big question still not satisfactorily answered. How, after centuries of extraordinary inventiveness, did it all suddenly stop sometime in the middle of the 15th century? Maybe the question now should be; How quickly will China resume its well documented capacity to invent? He describes a large sign at the Jiuquan space center that says in large letters "Without Haste. Without Fear. We Conquer the World"

This book is a must read for anyone interested in China.

I love Joseph Needham. Finally, a foreigner who is not a stuck-up self-righteous imperialist. Needham was a rare human being who transcended his time and space. And what a scientist and scholar! So I was eager to read this book about his life. Alas, Winchester is no Needham.
Winchester said China "finally officially declared war on Japan in Dec. 1941" after the Allies declared war on Japan. Not So! China officially declared "war" on Japan in August 1937, after nonstop Japanese incursion for 20 years. Just because England and America still tried to appease the Japanese, the English and the Americans dismissively classified the Sino-Japanese War as a "local conflict". Winchester, not knowing any better, continued to do the same. That's the sort of arrogance Needham was trying to cure.
Chinese knew they would win against the Japanese. The war cry was "trade space for time", the same strategy Russia used to defeat Napoleon. It was not news to the Chinese that all barbarians, for thousands of years, had tried to conquer China and everyone of them had disappeared (except the Mongols) while China endured. It did not need to wait for Britain, a small island nation (most of its history only half an island), to figure that out for them in 1941. Winchester spinned it as if the war in China was won because of the Americans and the British. He apparently did not know that Americans fought mainly in Europe and the Pacifics and, except for the Flying Tigers, played only a very small part in the Sino-Japanese War, while the British were a disgrace in their battles in Burma and their surrenders of Hong Kong and Singapore went down the history as most shameful displays of cowardess.
While the British crow endless about building the "Burma Road" as if that's such a great achievement, China quietly used the ancient Tea and Horse Road in "Operation Caravan" in and out of China to Burma and India to buy supplies. Yes, Chinese did use the Burma Road to rescue defeated British troops from the invading Japanese.
Oh, yeah, according to Winchester, based on Needham's diary, only the Communist soldiers had any discipline and only westerners in China did anything for the war effort. The other hundreds of millions of Chinese were either corrupt or had been stunned into stupor. Egads! Thank God for the western ex-patriots for showing the ignorant Chinese how to escape the Japanese! Hmmm... What did the British do in WWII? Not much! They were gasping for life and begged America to help them and Needham used his diplomatic privilege to enjoy himself in China like a grand pooh-bah.
When China was fighting a Total War of survival against a vicious enemy bent on total domination, of course the Chinese government should pay full attention to "scientific researches" and "university libraries"! And Chinese should be ever so grateful that the British sent them papers for stone rubbing on ancient tablets or for English books you can get later after the war is over. Compared with what Needham took from China and shipped to Cambridge, the donations he obtained for China were miserly and not even worth mentioning.
Why do imperialists never ask the natives about things they would like to know? Why do they imagine only they have the ability to figure out what's going on in foreign places and alien cultures? Chinese ambition and innovation were strangled as of the 15th century because the Ming Dynasty was one of the most corrupt, oppressive, and weak dynasties of Chinese history. Coming just after Mongol's Yuan Dynasty, the first time the entire China was conquered, Ming emperors lived in fear of foreigners and shut the doors of China. They enforced the xenophobic policy with an iron hand. Chinese spirit withered under the tyranny and China began to decay.
Winchester said he didn't know why Chinese men loved bound feet. That's simple! When China was strong, Chinese women were free. But Han China went into decline after the 10th century. Bouund feet became a cultural necessity beginning as of the decadent and enfeebled Song Dynasty. Chinese women were not stupid. When nomadic barbarians overran China, women began to eye them with appreciation. Chinese men became worried and began to bind their women's feet to prevent them from running away and to make them unattractive to the barbarians. That's why only Han women's feet were bound. Women accepted it later because it became a symbol of wealth as they were not needed for manual labor. And, sometimes, you need to look at yourself to understand others. Why do modern western men like their women in high heels? Why do modern western women torture themselves in high heels with only 3 inches touching the ground? Because men think it sexy when women mince their steps when walking and have to sway their hips for balance.
How did Gwaynne-Vaughan became Queenie Woggin? Not because of her "queenly" demeaner as Winchester imagined. Those Chinese mentioned by Winchester probably never met her so they would not have known of her queenly demeaner. But, it's clear to the Chinese, or anyone who knows how to spell, Gwaynne should be pronounced Queenie and Vaughan should be pronounced Woggin. It's the silly British who do not know how to spell or how to pronounce the names.
The victors of WWII - Britain, France, Russia, and America? No mention of China! Oversight or deliberate snob? Russia did not get into the war in Europe until Hitler foolishly attacked it, and it had to be bribed into breaking its non-aggrassion pack with Japan in 1945. France was conquered by Germany. Britain was on its last breath. Even at its worst, China was doing more, and better, against the Japanese than all these three "allies" were doing against the Nazi. Was WWII just a war for Europe? Is Europe all the world that matters? That's the type of arrogance and prejudice Needham was trying to cure. There will be no understanding between China and the West until westerners give up their imperialistic perspectives.
While ordinary people quietly disobeyed Hitler, university professors loudly supported him. Don't forget the most famous Communist spy ring was a group of well placed faculties and students in elite colleges in England. Tenured intellegensia is labeled as people living in the "ivory tower" because they are removed from the normal life and have little clue of the real world. Winchester seems to be such a ivory tower person and his superiority complex showed in his writings.
Needham's Chinese robe was blue because blue cloth were cheap and traditionally worn by poor Chinese scholars who were proud to be unworldly. So "blue robe" became the synonym for intelligentsia (while "red robe" became the synonym for high official status and wealth). It had nothing to do with "high achievement". Needham knew that but Winchester apparently didn't.
"Yongle Encyclopedia" of the Yongle emperor, "Anthology of illustrations and books old and new" of the Kangxi emperor, and "Complete collections of four libraries" of the Qianlong emperor were all massive undertakings commissioned by emperors and compiled by hundreds of scholars over decades. Collections of biographies of famous Britains clearly are not in the same catagory. Even though the purpose of these domineeering emperors for doing this, besides for fame, was to forcibly collect books and censor what's available to scholars, they did become a valuable intellectual treasure. Alas, many volumes and copies were destroyed when the Alliance Armies pillaged Beijing and ransacked the Forbidden City in 1900.
Breast harness and stirups changed the warfare completely. Breast harness allowed the rider full control of the horse in full gallop without choking the horse. Stirups allowed the rider to stand up while riding thus the full use of body and weight instead of just the arms. And they enabled the horse and rider to travel long distance without tiring.
Ironically, the life-long devout Communist who could not bring himself to ever say anything bad about communism no matter what, spent his twilight years kowtowing to rich people in capitalist socieites begging for their money. Didn't see Communist China come to Needham's rescue after they duped him and disgraced him. And didn't see them give him any money for his magnum opus! It's also funny that even Needham, the sincere socialist, was careful to accumulate personal wealth. A clear example of "do what I say, not what I do!"
"Ren chu liu yin" is an active phrase, "the man is gone but he left his shadow behind". Winchester translated it into a passive phrase "the man departs, there remains his shadow" which in Chinese would be "ren chu yin liu". Needham would have known the difference.
Jiuquan may have killed an unwelcome Jesuit as Winchester said, but that's not its claim of fame. It's been an ancient frontier post since 300 BC. It's famous to the Chinese because, after a great victory over the nomadic Xiongnu, the Han general wanted to celebrate. But there was not enough wine for everyone. So he poured the wine into a spring and ordered the water from the spring be shared by all. Chinese thereupon changed the name of the outpost to "Jiuquan", Wine Spring, to commenmorate this event.
Even though Needham's great acheivement was based on stealing books by the truckloads from China during WWII, since he did take good care of the stolen goods and made good use of them, since Communist China could not be trusted to take care of Chinese heritages and destroyed much valuables during the Cultural Revolution, since knowledge belongs to all humanity, I am willing to forgive him for the theft. He did a wonderful job in bringing Chinese science and technology to the attention of the westerners. Where is another such a westerner to do the same for Chinese society and explain Chinese culture to the foreigners?

Excellent historical account of an exceptional individual / scientist / scholar - amazing accomplishments and travel experiences. Nicely written, interesting and informative.

As a reasonably well read scientist I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Joseph Needham until I read this book. But, apparently I am far from the only one as Mr. Winchester alludes to in the quite surprising Epilogue to the book - you have to read it to believe it.

Joseph Needham started out as a highly gifted microbiologist at Cambridge who developed a passionate interest in China during the decades between the world wars. Parenthetically, not the least of his Chinese interests was a young student who became his mistress for life and near the end became his wife. Joseph's wife was on board with this as the Needham's led an unconventional life.

As Japan took over greater and greater parts of China during WWII Needham, because of his interest in China and knowledge of Chinese, ended up heading up a British mission to the country that for him became a mission to help save China's scientific institutions survive the Japanese onslaught. In the process Needham became increasingly fascinated/obsessed with tracing Chinese scientific and technology developments over several millennia. Much of this area of study was virgin territory, not just for westerners but also for the Chinese. The book discusses at length the travels in China that Needham undertook over a number of years. In the process he became a true friend of China, as well as a well known quantity to Mao and his cohorts.

Back at Cambridge after the war Needham set out on the mission that would define his career, writing an encyclopedic history of Chinese scientific and technology development, "Science and Civilization in China". Decades and many volumes later this monumental task is still going on and has been lauded as one of the great science endeavors of the 20th century. People who are more qualified than I to quibble over such things sometimes argue about whether Needham became too obsessed with Chinese accomplishments to be fair to the rest of the world, but perhaps they are just jealous...

Winchester's book somewhat unevenly divided in terms of what it covers. There are a lot of details about his travels in China but then the subsequent decades are summarized fairly quickly. Not that this is necessarily bad, but Needham was such an interesting character that the later decades could probably have benefitted from some more expansion. This is particularly so because his life quickly became quite turbulent. In the early 1950's he became a "useful idiot" to Mao and his government after he agreed to investigate, with Chinese help of course, the claim that the US used biological weapons in the Korean war. Documents released after the Soviet fall revealed that the whole thing was a setup by the Soviets, but Needham concluded at the time that the US was guilty as charged, which led to a major diplomatic crisis. It took him many years to live that down and what saved his career in the end were the societal upheavals of the 1960's that looked upon his earlier missteps with greater sympathy, particularly as he was sympathetic to the student movement at the time. In a sense Needham's dealings with the Korea issue is reminiscent of Oppenheimer's (the "father of the atom bomb") flirtations with socialism and communism back in the 1930's. Both were brilliant scientists, but also both clearly naïve about how easily they could be manipulated for political purposes.

In the end Needham's accomplishment in writing his masterpiece overshadowed everything else and he lived out his long life never far from his office, nor from the women he pursued pretty much until he died in his early 90's. One gets the impression that Needham contributed importantly to microbiology as well, but beyond the early years that aspect is not really discussed in any depth at all in the book.

Anyone who has read Winchester knows that he is a very engaging writer who makes reading a pleasure. This is a great read. Perhaps not quite at the same engaging level as e.g. The Professor and the Madman" but nevertheless very much worth one's time.

I had purchased this book originally and wanted to get a copy for a friend. This copy was good except it didn't have the photographs & illustrations that the original had. I was somewhat disappointed by that. Otherwise it's a great book.

Typical British review: impressive depth, well researched, much understatement producing a grin ("I can count on one finger the persons having those honors"), plenty of who-what-when-where-how many-how much. Chatty style brings Prof Needham to full eccentic, left wing, outspoken, keen intellectual life. Mostly about Needham but enough about China to encourage further research. Delivery was prompt. No complaints.

Another book well done by Simon Winchester. The large-print version was a joy to read.