After hearing an interview on our local NPR affiliate with Simon Winchester, I bought this book in audio format in preparation for a long road trip. We were spellbound by this incredible story, listening almost non-stop to the 14 hour production. If you've never heard of Joseph Needham, don't feel bad - neither had we, or most anyone else I've asked. But he was one of the most interesting, eccentric, and brilliant people of the 20th century. The story is beautifully told by Simon Winchester, with anecdotes and historical background that amaze you. Such a detailed biography could stumble into confusing territory, but not in Winchester's skilled hands. The plot, Needham's life, unfolds in wondrous and surprising ways; I must have exclaimed 50 times "how could I not have known about this??" And the revelations about China are fascinating too - the remarkable history of an enlightened scientific culture, its slide into communism, and its economic resurgence. I strongly recommend this book.

If you look back at the titles of some of Mr. Winchester's older books, it's clear that Joseph Needham, the subject of this book, isn't the only man who loves China. Clearly, Winchester himself has a fascination for Asia and China. Admittedly, I have not read these earlier titles, having come to Mr. Winchester--like many I suspect--through the pages of The Professor and the Madman. However, I have kept up with his work since then and it's nice to see him able to bring his passion for China to the fore again.

Today, Joseph Needham is most remembered for the decades he spent putting together Science and Civilization in China, a series of books documenting the many advances made in China that pre-date the better known inventions/inventors in the West. What this ultimately means, as it was the West that took widest advantage of scientific and technical successes, is open to debate; however, it is fascinating to think about how far ahead the Chinese must have been at various points in their history, even into antiquity. A less inward-looking culture might have changed the entire face of world history.

Mr. Winchester gives us tidbits of these scientific facts to contemplate, but this book is really about Needham himself: a Cambridge scholar who was undoubtedly brilliant but in many ways controversial. He was very sexually liberated for his time, being married to a devoted woman who tolerated his many affairs, including a long-term affair with a Chinese woman, Lu Gwei-djen, who was likely the inspiration for much of his passion about China. He was sympathetic to communism and maintained a connection to communist China even when such a relationship was frowned upon. He dabbled in realpolitik which often caused him grief. But in the end, it is his work that is best remembered.

He started his career as a very successful scientist who parlayed his success and love of China into a diplomatic assignment to the country at the height of World War II. In the midst of his diplomatic duties--being a materials conduit for Chinese scientists--he made a number of trips across China, collecting information and artifacts which he periodically shipped home. When he returned, instead of resuming his scientific work, he devoted the rest of his life to history, assessing the materials he'd brought back and writing his magnum opus.

Mr. Winchester has an amazing facility for telling the stories of eccentrics and science. Here, he shows his skills yet again. This is a wonderfully readable book about a comparatively unknown scholar who deserves better. Mr. Winchester has done Needham--and the reading public--a real service.

Simon Winchester brings his considerable literary talent to a subject which one wouldn't think would catch the popular imagination. Joseph Needham is not exactly a household name. In the years of my academic training, I could have identified him and maybe even looked into his books once or twice but neither the subject nor the encyclopedic majesty of the works asserted by Winchester would have been high on any of my quite diverse scholarly horizons. I only made use of Needham's work when looking into Chinese attitudes toward nature and then it was the last book on agriculture, written entirely by someone other than Needham, which drew my attention. When I looked into the earlier volumes I found them listy without the kind of synthesis of history which would have made them more useful. In fact Winchester never addresses how much Needham's works really added to our understanding of Chinese history. At the end of the book Winchester does address, the "Needham problem," why China was so advanced and then completely dropped out the technological and scientific race. But it is clear that Needham's massive endeavor adds little to answering the question. The issue of who invented what first, establishing Chinese priority, seemed to be Needham's goal. While vaguely interesting like sports' records, what counts is the context of first and what that means, something which Needham may have presented, but we find little of in Winchester's biography.

What we do learn is about Needham's life of which I was entirely ignorant. What an interesting man and what a polymath. I am impressed and find myself coming up short in comparison. I have done hardly anything compared to Needham nor possess anywhere near the raw intellectual power and ability to work. Needham's personal life is intriguing. He was able to weave two, if not many more, capable women into his bed and get them to support him in his ambitious projects. He had his cake and et it, although after his wife and paramour die, his underlying neurotic need for female companionship is exposed. Then there was his achievement as a scientist. That alone makes him stand out. When tied to his work in China during the war, he becomes even more impressive. He both supports science and has an opportunity to live a bit of a Marco Polo existence. Here I feel there is an imbalance, maybe it is in Winchester's presentation or maybe in Needham's way of seeing the world. Needham is like an upper-class English radical: great social values, but not really applied to how he lives. He travels through the chaos of war torn China, and though commenting on it, does not really seem to take in the horror of it all. He has a kind of indifferent stiff upper lip. Maybe it is Winchester's presentation but I think it was Needham himself. Here is where I would have liked Winchester to give more historical context and maybe be a little more critical of his hero. An example, though from a different era was Winchester's discussion of the great Min river irrigation and water containment projects of the Qin dynasty. Winchester follows Needham in seeing this hydraulic achievement as another first, 3 centuries before the Roman aqueducts, and making possible the agricultural growth and stability of China. But there is nary a mention of the human cost of construction nor the incredible brutality of Qin's autocratic rule. The science and engineering priority come first,

This fits with Needham's incredible political naiveté. A confirmed socialist in the `20s and `30's who witnesses Chiang Kai-shek's corruption during World War Two, Needham has good grounds for his outlook. But his blindness when it comes to Mao's China, like the innocence of progressives visiting the Soviet Union in the 1930s, is inexcusable and says something about Needham that Winchester does not fully explore. Needham didn't see through the show the Chinese put on for him when he visited nor figure out that his friends had vanished during the cultural revolution. And that he wasn't principled enough to call a spade a spade says something about Needham's personality or Winchesters lack of criticalness in presenting Needham's life. On the whole, the book is interesting but as in Winchester's other writings it would have profited from a more incisive application of critical history. I would also liked to have had an evaluation of how "Science and Civilization," fits into an understanding of China's past.

Charlie Fisher, author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

Okay, I've read two books by this guy and frankly, he's a hack. He has this obvious device of constantly creating false tension and the payoff is almost always disappointing. There is no real story here; nothing that could not be told in 1/3 the number of pages, quite possibly less, and even then, probably not worth the read.

This is a great book covering Joseph Needham, Ph.D. and his life work on 19 volumes of "Science and Civilization in China", Caius College, Cambridge University, UK.

His personal life is interesting. He has a wife who is into biochemical research, and has several paramours. The second marriage with Lu Gwei-djen was a great read. Lu waited for him, her whole life.

If China invented all of these scientific products, then what is the reason that China fell behind western countries in the last 50 years?

It is communism, that killed all the innovation. Cultural revolution and gang of four destroyed China's science and technology. Mao Zedong is the major problem for the lack of leadership.

History changes after Deng XiaoPing took charge. Deng was the major force for economic reform.

Unfortunately, Joseph Needham was either too old, or too much involved in the old China. He totally missed the new China development. He passed away in 1995, and that is when the new China started to take off.

How can you resist Simon Winchester? This guy has the outlandish pluck to examine an obscure, deceased, lefty academic and turn him into the sexy sage whose revisionist history of technology has become a best seller. But, Winchester tackles his subject with such verve and shapes his narrative with such novelistic skill, that he has created a wholly engaging biography.

Basically, Needham fell in love with China in the 1930s under the influence of his colleague and lover, Lu Gwei-djen. He learned to read and write Chinese in three years. Upon visiting the country, he launched into his massive project to document every modicum of progress accomplished since the 15th century BC. This task is still not complete; Science and Civilisation in China is in 24 volumes, but more is to come from the folks at Cambridge.

Needham's eccentricity, genius and persistence deserve recognition, though the promise of such a character pales with the years. By the end, I was hoping for something more. Frankly, a few highlights from Needham's writings should have been included. I would have loved to read a few anecdotes about ancient masters whipping up silk robes for their girlfriends, blowing up mountains with high explosives or buzzing around in bamboo airplanes.

In the epilogue, Winchester addresses the "Needham question" that wonders why China could not utilize its inventiveness to the benefit of its people. It seems that as soon as Europe pulled out of the Dark Ages, China stumbled in. Such a question cannot be succinctly answered, but the author bats it around. This is a great book to read- especially if you don't know much about China or science. Winchester will keep you entertained.

Winchester has, characteristically, written a superbly readable, inevitably simplified, and seriously informative book about both an extraordinary human life and a profoundly important human truth. Joseph Needham was an original - Teddy Roosevelt's physical courage, Charles Darwin's intellectual ambition, George Bernard Shaw's literacy and zest for life in all its dimensions. And he tackled with unbelievable efficacy the gulf between Western self-referential perception of history and the reality of Asia's, and most particularly China's (for in truth India's ancient contributions in mathematics are under explored by both Needham and Winchester), astonishing contributions to the world. This book is a brilliant primer as we enter the Asian Century - a wake up call to those of us who have come to believe that all innovation comes from the West, and will continue to do so. As Winchester, through Needham, demonstrates, neither of these beliefs are true - and the consequences in the near future will be immense.

Once again Simon WInchester has brought his extraordinary intellect, insatiable curiosity and remarkable eye for detail to bear upon another unique and fascinating subject. His remarkable life as a world class journalist and author has taken him to every corner of the world. Reviewers occasionally try to tag him as a stodgy academic which is far from the truth. Indeed, such a notion is positively ludicrous. Winchester is an adventurer who never stops scanning the horizon for new knowledge and new experiences.

Needham's life encompasses an overlaying of eras; colonial traditions, wars, scientific revolutions and unprecedented social changes. While all went on around him, he documented the cultural and scientific history of a great civilization. The Needham Question asks why China's brilliant technological growth simply stopped around 1500 AD. While the question is fascinating It is hard to comprehend Needham's wholehearted embracing of Chinese communism. Countless young leftists of the 1930s hoped communism would bring real social justice to the masses. Stalinist atrocities and horrors like the Cultural Revolution caused most to look elsewhere for hope, recognizing that tyranny can come in many forms and never brings social justice. Needham viewed the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution as growing pains. Ironically, the priceless collection of books and manuscripts he took back to Cambridge would likely have been destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. Underlying some protests he made against the regime, he still hoped for a better future for the people of China.

Now, more than ever before our understanding of China in all its complexities is crucial. Winchester brings that understanding to his readers with skill and eloquence. Surely Needham would have been delighted and proud to have such a biographer tell his story. Winchester is without doubt one of the great writers of our time.

This is a great read to be taken slowly, pondered and savored. At a time when China's actions are so very controversial, it is worthwhile to remember that while China's human rights record is more than a little repugnant, there is much to appreciate and understand about a culture rooted in 5,000 years of history. Without China's role in world history, our lives would be radically different.

As the book was launched, worldwide riots and protests denounced China's treatment of Tibet and the Tibetan people. Rightly so. (Not that America has much to brag about these days. Guantanamo, Guantanamo, Guantanamo.) Winchester was in the unenviable position of promoting a title that spoke of love and China when the world has little love to offer China. Perhaps, a deeper international understanding will lead to full and inalienable human rights world wide and most particularly in China and America. Without doubt, to read this book is to gain wider, richer perspectives of today's world. Yet, it is impossible to suppress a shudder as his epilogue ends. This soaring exploration of the Needham question, ends with the chilling description of a sign outside of China's space center, Jiuquan, "Without Haste. Without Fear. We Conquer The World."


Sue Morrow Flanagan

China is once again emerging as a major player in the family of nations. But certain questions have lingered with scholars and historians. Why did China, a nation which was so inventive and which experienced five thousand years of a flourishing civilization, fail to establish an industrial revolution similar to that of the west, thereby spending the decades of the 19th and 20th century mired in poverty, revolution, and instability? Joseph Needham was a respected Cambridge scholar and scientist who in 1937 fell in love with a visiting Chinese study and through his mistress became interested in her home country. By the time he died, Needham has authored seventeen volumes on China and cited by the academic community as a singular expert on Chinese history, culture, and society. "The Man Who Loved China" is the deftly written biography of a most extraordinary man and this flawlessly produced, complete and unabridged, nine hour audio book, written and read by Simon Winchester, provides an informed and informative story of an eccentric scientist whose dedication and meticulous scholarship explained the mysteries of China to the world. This superb CD audio book edition of "The Man Who Loved China" is highly recommended for personal, academic, and community library collections.

Simon Winchester can always be counted on for an extraordinary reading treat. In The Man Who Loved China we have his best work since The Professor and the Madman.

Joseph Needham was a brilliant scientist and a remarkable eccentric. He could be affable one moment and withdrawn the next, he practiced nudism and had a very "modern" interpretation of his marriage vows, an interpretation his wife shared and which led to a menage a trois which lasted for decades. Most of all, Needham was a lover of China and of China's scientific gifts to the world. During World War II he was sent to China at the behest of the British and American Armed Forces to re-connect with the professors and other staff members of Chinese universities which had been evacuated during the war with Japan. During his adventures, which Winchester provides a marvelous description of, Needham became convinced that China was the originator of much of what has become modern science. He spent the last fifty years or so of his very long life writing an extraordinary multi-volume work, which is still in the process of publication, on science in Chinese civilization.

As always, Winchester has a keen eye for a good anecdote and a clear and witty writing style. He does an excellent job depicting Needham's extraordinary life, both his heights of achievement and his lows, such as the time his naivete about politics led to his being conned by Soviet propaganda and then black-listed for years by the US government, so that he was unable to visit the many American universities which wished to honor him. Winchester also reveals the many interconnections and odd conjunctions with which Needham's life was filled, for example his connection with the creation of the term "gung-ho" and the unwitting (and innocent) assistance he gave the Unabomber.

I teach AP World History, which of necessity spends much time on China. I am grateful to Joseph Needham for doing so much to reveal that land's multitudinous gifts to the world and to Simon Winchester for writing so engaging a biography of this complex, fascinating man.

Let me get to the second half of my title first, as the heart of appreciation of Joseph Needham is his rehabilitation, if you will, of Chinese "firsts" in scientific, technical and cultural discoveries and inventions.

Winchester lists several of these on page 8, and one more later in the book. However, some of them are questionable, at least, as Chinese "firsts."

Specifically, that's chess, the stirrup, the crossbow and the flamethrower.

Majority of historians (which Winchester one-quarter acknowledges later in the book) stand by the theory that chess derived from India and does not have a connection to the Chinese xiangqi.

The stirrup? As Wiki notes, the first dependable representation of a saddle with *paired* stirrups is from China, yes. But single stirrups are documented elsewhere in the world 800 years earlier. My guess is that the paired stirrups were invented by Central Asian Huns, Turks or Mongols, the horsemen par excellance of the steppes a millennium before Temujin.

The crossbow was likely invented by the same people, not the Chinese, though it appears to have spread there before going westward. And, in the west, though technically not a crossbow, the ballista was invented around the same time.

The flamethrower? The Byzantines were launching Greek fire out of ship-based flamethrowers more than two centuries before Needham said the Song dynasty saw the invention of the flamethrower.

And, the list of "firsts" in the appendix seems a bit tendentious. For example, what's so special about a "Chinese-type" still, since Egyptians invented a still 700 years earlier?

Or "soil science"? What exactly did the Chinese discover "first"?

At other times, it just seems not true. I've never before seen the claim that the Chinese, not Croesus, invented metal coinage.

Beyond that, the book is a bit thin on other things.

Was it more love of a woman, or love of Marxism, that led Needham to be so enamored with not just ancient China, but post-1949 China?

Why did Needham go beyond legitimately selling Chinese discoveries to overselling them?

Why didn't the Chinese invent "modern science"? Winchester never really addresses whether Needham answered this rhetorical question he set himself or not.

And, if this book didn't have so many uncritical five-star reviews, I might four-star it myself, but even that is doubtful. In fact, Winchester's appendix is off-putting enough, I'd almost 2-star this book.

In short, it's not entirely unfair to accuse Winchester of hagiography. Whether that hero-worship is more of Needham or more of China, I'm not sure.

Winchester's life of Joseph Needham is indeed well written, but we still need a full and more knowledgeable life of Needham. Winchester is good on Needham's sex life and its role in his initial love of China (discretely avoided in most academic discussions of his work), on his early travels in China, and on the controversy about his accusation that the US used germ warfare in the Korean War. However, Winchester's account says little about Needham's early scientific and historical work in biochemical embryology (perhaps thinking it irrelevant to his China studies).(This topic is discussed in Haraway's book "Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields".) Needham's organismic and historical view of developmental biology, combining an interest in modern scientific techniques with process and holistic views of reality. This organismic view of science fit well with the approach of Chinese traditional thinkers toward reality. Needham's philosophical interests also played a role in his recognition and appreciation of the traditional Chinese approach to science. Needham's association with the British Marxist biologists J. D. Bernal and J. B. S. Haldane is touched on in a sentence and a footnote. Also omitted is the dramatic story of the surprise visit to London by plane of a dozen scientific superstars led by Nikolai Bukharin (about to be purged along with the plant geographer Vavilov) and the effect of their talks in inspiring Needham. He said he heard "the trumpet blast" of their notion of a truly social and political history of science. No explanation is given by Winchester of the aspects of Marxism as a philosophy of nature that were congenial with Needham's sympathy for traditional Chinese philosophy of nature. These are a non-reductionistic materialism or naturalism which recognizes levels of organization and development and a process view of nature. Needham also found the latter in the logician and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical process philosophy, which emphasized the role of feeling throughout nature and the replacement of substances (enduring objects) with a vision of reality in terms of events and processes. Unfortunately Winchester neglects these conceptual roots of Needham's reconstruction of the Chinese vision of nature. Likewise, Winchester does not discuss the political controversy that ensued from Needham's Marxism. For instance,an early review of C. Gillispie, leading historian of science, attempted to discredit Needham's claims about the amazing technological and scientific discoveries the early Chinese made by claiming that Needham's Marxism makes his historical claims untrustworthy Chinese Communist propaganda. Finally, Winchester has very little discussion of the involved historical controversy about Needham's explanation of why the Chinese did not develop modern science, despite being far ahead of the West in technology and natural history observation until at least 1500. Winchester dismisses this issue by saying that now China is industrializing and developing modern science. True, but the issue of why China didn't develop experimental and mathematical science back in the early modern period while the comparatively backward Europe did is still a puzzle. Needham's explanation involves the role of individualism (tied to atomism), capitalism, and formal legal systems (which Needham claims were metaphorically and practically extended in the later middle ages to the notion of laws of nature -- for instance in the court trials of animals) in the West which were largely lacking in China. This sort of social explanation also smacks of Marxism, which may be why Winchester doesn't discuss it.

Winchester's life of Joseph Needham is indeed well written, but we still need a full and more knowledgeable life of Needham. Winchester is good on Needham's sex life and its role in his initial love of China (discretely avoided in most academic discussions of his work), on his early travels in China, and on the controversy about his accusation that the US used germ warfare in the Korean War. However, Winchester's account says little about Needham's early scientific and historical work in biochemical embryology (perhaps thinking it irrelevant to his China studies).(This topic is discussed in Haraway's book "Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields".) Needham's organismic and historical view of developmental biology, combining an interest in modern scientific techniques with process and holistic views of reality. This organismic view of science fit well with the approach of Chinese traditional thinkers toward reality. Needham's philosophical interests also played a role in his recognition and appreciation of the traditional Chinese approach to science. Needham's association with the British Marxist biologists J. D. Bernal and J. B. S. Haldane is touched on in a sentence and a footnote. Also omitted is the dramatic story of the surprise visit to London by plane of a dozen scientific superstars led by Nikolai Bukharin (about to be purged along with the plant geographer Vavilov) and the effect of their talks in inspiring Needham. He said he heard "the trumpet blast" of their notion of a truly social and political history of science. No explanation is given by Winchester of the aspects of Marxism as a philosophy of nature that were congenial with Needham's sympathy for traditional Chinese philosophy of nature. These are a non-reductionistic materialism or naturalism which recognizes levels of organization and development and a process view of nature. Needham also found the latter in the logician and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical process philosophy, which emphasized the role of feeling throughout nature and the replacement of substances (enduring objects) with a vision of reality in terms of events and processes. Unfortunately Winchester neglects these conceptual roots of Needham's reconstruction of the Chinese vision of nature. Likewise, Winchester does not discuss the political controversy that ensued from Needham's Marxism. For instance,an early review of C. Gillispie, leading historian of science, attempted to discredit Needham's claims about the amazing technological and scientific discoveries the early Chinese made by claiming that Needham's Marxism makes his historical claims untrustworthy Chinese Communist propaganda. Finally, Winchester has very little discussion of the involved historical controversy about Needham's explanation of why the Chinese did not develop modern science, despite being far ahead of the West in technology and natural history observation until at least 1500. Winchester dismisses this issue by saying that now China is industrializing and developing modern science. True, but the issue of why China didn't develop experimental and mathematical science back in the early modern period while the comparatively backward Europe did is still a puzzle. Needham's explanation involves the role of individualism, capitalism, and formal legal systems in the West which were largely lacking in China. This sort of social explanation also smacks of Marxism, which may be why Winchester doesn't discuss it.

Mr. Winchester's biography of Dr. Needham is fascinating. The book succeeds on many levels. Like other of Winchester's books, it documents the extraordinary accomplishments of a genuine eccentric, making it compelling just in narrative terms. In addition, it traces the work of (arguably) the greatest Sinologist that the world has known, east or west, whose mammoth undertaking over many volumes has demonstrated that China is responsible, directly or indirectly, for an extraordinary number of innovations which we take for granted (and for which we often misattribute credit).

I do think very highly of this book and have strongly recommended it. That said, it seems to me to have one shortcoming. On the one hand, the book is highly economical. Winchester paints a very clear picture of Needham, his spouse (or spouses, depending on how you count them), his remarkable accomplishments in biological sciences, and then the astonishing project by which he and his team documented what is, for all intents and purposes, the invention of science and technology over three millennia of Chinese thought. On the other hand, the book is highly economical--its strength is its weakness. Winchester weaves through the study two questions fundamental to thinking about China. The first (and he appears to have discovered manuscript information which documents the moment when it occurred to Needham) was the suspicion that China was indeed responsible for an awful lot more in engineering, science, commerce, medicine, agriculture, civil reform, military planning (etc., etc., etc.) than anyone had ever thought. The second, and one which begs many more questions, was perhaps on the fringe of Needham's own thinking (hard to tell) but very central to Winchester's, here and in other of his works: What the heck happened in the 16th century or so, which seems in some ways to have initiated a hiatus in China's development of leading innovation?

Here's where I'd love to hear more. Winchester suggests towards the end of the volume (and I take this from his earlier work too) that for some reason the culture in a sense gave up. He takes a further step in that reasoning. If I understand him correctly, he concludes that China took a break for a few centuries, pausing in a 3000+ year history of extraordinary technological innovation. Well, he suggests, maybe the break is over.

I know that this is an unfair point to make, and I offer it as a 'criticism' only with tongue in cheek. It amounts to saying that the book should have been three or four times longer and much more than a biography of Needham. As an historical biography and cultural study, it is very fine and a page-turner. I do hope that Mr. Winchester will continue this line of thinking, begun in earlier volumes and continued in the context of Needham's enormous contributions, and I look forward to further installments. I strongly recommend the book.

Winchester has done it again! He has introduced me, and I'm sure many others like me, to another fascinating individual. I thought that he had reached his apex when he exposed to the world Dr. W. C. Minor and Professor James Murray of "The Professor and the Madman" fame; however, the egocentric Joseph Needham is more than their equal in the sure to be best-seller, "The Man Who Loved China".

The book reads like fiction when one considers all that Needham achieved in his lifetime. He traveled thousands of miles to the remotest regions of China under the most perilous of times (WWII), collecting artifacts, doing research, and speaking at length with the inhabitants, many of whom were European missionaries, doctors, scholars, and scientists. During the years he spent in China, he intensely investigated China's inventiveness and contribution to the world's knowledge base.

Throughout the book, Winchester weaves the situations, events, and people that Needham encountered that led him to the conclusion that China had invented devices or discovered processes well in advance of those in the West. Appendix I cites many of these inventions and discoveries. The list is rather extensive.

At the time of his death at age ninety-four, Needham had essentially either single-handedly or under his watchful eye produced seventeen volumes under the banner title "Science and Civilistion in China', making him the most renowned authority on the Middle Kingdom. All this from an individual who was introduced to Chinese culture by his mistress and who was self-taught in the language.

If there is one drawback to the man, it is that, owing to the fervid love he had for the people, his socialist worldview clouded his thinking regarding the Cultural Revolution that engulfed China even to this day. He was duped on more than one occasion by the propagandists that preyed on the trust he had for fellow Chinese scientists who were nothing more, as it turns out, than agents of the state.

I wait in anticipation for the next person or persons that Simon Winchester brings to light. He definitely has an uncanny ability of chosing intriguing subjects that have interesting and unique backgrounds
and life styles, and most of all, have had a significant influence on world enlightenment.

Simon Winchester has by now established quite a reputation for popular biographies and general popular humanities writing, and as "The Man Who Loved China" shows, this is well deserved. In this book, Winchester tells the riveting story of the life of Joseph Needham, the eccentric Briton who was trained as a biologist, but would become both perhaps the greatest Sinologist of the 20th Century and one of China's most stalwart defenders.

Needham came from a solid left-leaning middle class background, becoming more and more socialist during his studies at Cambridge University, although never joining the CPGB. He developed as a biochemist an early interest in China and the Chinese, and at a time when British politics was avowedly pro-Japanese, as they would remain until 1941, Needham was one of the few voices raised in China's defence. Being a true renaissance man, Needham learned Chinese in a short period from his Chinese mistress, who is next to him one of the protagonists of the book (Needham had an open marriage, being consistently liberal in sexual matters).

It was this known pro-China sentiment that led to his charge as a diplomatic representative of the King to the Nationalist Chinese, where his task was to support the scientific efforts of the Chinese in the non-Japanese occupied areas. Despite his general sympathies to the Communist Chinese cause, he set himself on this task with vigor, expending great effort to assist Chinese science and the Chinese in general with supplies, as well as making important and useful contacts with scientists and researchers in that country. He also undertook, in association with the famous Rewi Alley, various expeditions to remote parts of that vast land to do archeological and anthropological fieldwork on his own.

It was this that led to the formation of the masterpiece of science for which Needham is justly renowned: the standardwork "Science and Civilization in China", a veritable encyclopedia of Chinese scientific history in an astounding 24 volumes (most of which not published during his lifetime). By means of this work, Needham absolutely and irrefutably established the falsity of Eurocentric theories considering the superiority of Europeans in science or abstract thought, and demonstrated that China had invented or developed many concepts and applications, almost too numerous to list, far before anyone in this part of the world did.

Needham himself was later much damaged in his reputation by the slanders and calumnies heaped upon him for his steadfast support for socialism in China, which even led to him being declared non grata in the United States, and veritably shunned in the UK, to the great damaging of his career. Nonetheless he continued both his excellent scientific and political work, and when the tide turned in the 1960s he was duly elected Master of Caius College, Cambridge, a position he then used to (unsuccesfully) agitate for allowing women into the college and for relaxing the laws against homosexuality, among other things. It is not just Needham's scientific and political life, however, that cause admiration, but also the immense brilliance of his mind, which in true 'homo universalis' style he applied to every possible subject and knowledge he came across: doing research of his own on anything that interested him, from train models to English working-class history and folk-dancing. It is rare in history that we find such universally wise people, and they almost always cause great advances in the understanding of their age; Needham was one of them.

For this reason it is unfortunate that the biography is in some places flawed. Biographer Winchester misses the essential point when he describes the topic of "Science and Civilization in China" as the question why China failed to develop after 1500; in fact, as for example historical geographer James Blaut has so often tried to impress on the public consciousness, China did not fail to develop from that period at all, and developed just as fast in technological terms between 1500 and 1800 as in the 300 years before. It was on the contrary Europe that started developing much faster than anyone else, the real question that demands explaining (and which Blaut explains by the colonization of the Americas). Winchester does the Chinese and Needham both a disservice by continuing this myth. It is also annoying to me personally how Winchester tends to downplay the historical significance of Needham's socialism, which he fortunately does not ignore, but does treat rather as an example of British academic eccentricism; and as a result, he makes all sorts of conjectures about how Needham could 'obviously' never really have supported Communist China as it became, despite the fact Needham went there several times and continued supporting Mao. Winchester is free to disagree with, but not to project upon, his subject.

Despite these flaws, however, this book is a very lively, well-written and fair biography of a fascinating and heroic engagé scientist, who truly challenged Eurocentric views of history through his own research and whose exploits make him seem almost an Indiana Jones of socialism.

Joseph Needham was a brilliant scholar who seemed to care about, and revel in, everything. A leading biochemist at Cambridge University, a flamboyant leftist, an accomplished linguist, Needham (1900-1995) had an intellectual range at age 25 that impressed colleagues so much that he was said to be on his way to becoming the Erasmus of the 20th century.

One summer day in 1937, a knock came on his wooden door at Cambridge from the hand of a comely graduate student from China named Lu Gwei-djen. Needham was married, but it did not prevent his magnetic interest in Lu. Meeting her changed the trajectory of his life, and of Western scholarship about China.

As the two lay naked in bed sharing a smoke one evening, Needham asked Lu to show him how to write "cigarette" in Chinese. He was immediately captivated by the timeworn beauty of the ancient characters, and declared his ambition to learn the entire language. He did so swiftly, and it only fed his curiosity and spurred his determination to understand the origins and achievements of China's illustrious culture, one of the most complex in human history.

That project consumed the rest of his life. Volume by volume, Needham created "Science and Civilisation in China," a breathtakingly panoramic study of topics including astronomy, politics and zoology, and the interconnectedness of all. Wonderfully written, it became a 24-volume foundation for, and an inspiration to, generations of China scholars, journalists and writers drawn to the country's colorful enigma. One such writer was Simon Winchester, the skilled storyteller and author of the lively "The Professor and the Madman" on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Like many avid readers of books about China, Winchester repeatedly went back to "Science and Civilisation." Unlike others, Winchester decided to decode the man behind it.

What a story it turns out to be. "The Man Who Loved China" is a charming literary and cultural adventure that captures the unadorned brilliance and infectious enthusiasm of this remarkable man, with his outsized intellectual ambition and his endearing zest for life. Needham won an assignment to China as a British diplomat during World War II. Landing in Chungking, he had a local tailor make him a floor-length Chinese scholar's robe of blue silk, which he wore every day. He traveled extensively and at considerable risk, navigating the desert to see the Buddhist cave art at Dunhuang, skirting Japanese enemy lines along China's southern coast and collecting cartloads of artwork and books and cultural treasures. (The British diplomatic service paid for unlimited shipments home.)Needham's eye roved constantly, resting on attractive women here and there. But it landed more often on the marvels of Chinese civilization -- the abacus, the chopstick, the invention of movable type. Needham gradually learned of China's great discoveries -- paper, gunpowder and tea are among the most famous -- but the list grew so long and varied that it belied the common assumption in the West at the time that China was an exotic but essentially crude culture. Needham's study demonstrated otherwise. His easy ability to make friends helped his research by winning the confidence of Chinese scientists and scholars who assisted his investigations. In one instance, a meteorologist who was president of the prestigious Zhejiang University was so impressed with Needham and so concerned with World War II's destruction of scholarly material in China that he unexpectedly sent Needham an extensive trove of rare books, critical to later research.

After four years in China, Needham returned to Cambridge. For the rest of their lives Lu remained his companion, confidante and consigliere. Needham's wife Dorothy apparently accepted the arrangement. Joseph and Dorothy Needham remained married until her death in 1987. Two years later, Needham married Lu. When Needham conceived his masterwork, he envisioned seven volumes. He was only off by 17. It took the rest of his life, and then some, to complete the study. The first volume was published by Cambridge in 1954, to universal acclaim. Each successive volume brought more praise. When Needham died in 1995, having reluctantly agreed to let coauthors help him finish, a few uncompleted volumes remained. The final one came out in 2004.

Winchester is an engaging writer and brisk storyteller. His one failing in this book is to skate too quickly over what came to be known as the "Needham question": Why did China, so technologically advanced in antiquity, essentially get stuck after AD 500? In the following centuries, as modern science thrived in the West, why was China left behind? It is an enduring mystery of Chinese history, and it captivated Needham for all the years he worked on his masterpiece. In Winchester's view, Needham "never fully worked out the answers." After tossing out a few conventional theories -- China became too bureaucratic, it never developed a mercantile class -- Winchester blithely suggests that such a quest is ultimately "quite fruitless." To the contrary, it is a mystery that merits delving into, particularly when China is emerging as a candidate for superpower of the coming century. If China's complex cultural burdens stifled innovation in the past, will they prevent it from rising again? Will China surge briefly, only to sputter into a second-rate power? Or will it buck history and surpass the U.S.? Questions worth dwelling on.

This book will be of value for those with a special interest in China, but to my thinking is not a great biography, although one of a quite interesting English scholar.

The author tends to hero-worship his subject to the point of painting 1950s America as a darker place than 1950s China. (Professor Needham was a devoted friend of Red China and got into some trouble for siding with North Korean allegations of U.S. biological warfare during the Korean War.) The real lack of political freedom-- setting aside stark comparisons of state-caused domestic body counts--was a far, far grimmer matter in the PRC under Mao than in the U.S. under Ike.

On another point of historical fact, Simon Winchester on page 213 states that Beria "had almost certainly been involved with Stalin's murder..." I do not think it has been proven that Stalin was murdered (although he certainly, of anyone, would have deserved such a fate.)

Simon Winchester's forte is creating a microscopic view of events. They may be great events, like the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 or events that but for his eye might have slipped unnoticed into the annals of history, like the story of the madman and the Professor.

With this story of the life and work of Joseph Needham, Winchester once again works his very special magic. Without Winchester, it is most likely that only a diminishing number of academics would know of Needham at all, much less the results of his work, a comprehensive history of Chinese scientific acheivements.

Instead Winchester tells us the story of an extraordinary, eccentric Englishman who became a Professor at Cambridge. A socialist, if not a Communist, Winchester married, but agreed with his wife that their relationship would be open. Thus, Needham added to the relationship a Chinese mistress who was a part of his and his wife's lives for the next 50-some years. It is his mistress, Gwei-djen, a competent scientist in her own right, who awakens in Needham an interest in China.

Needham's interest in China - he taught himself to write and speak Mandarin - brings him an appointment in WWII to go to China and be a liason between British and Chinese institutions of learning. Bear in mind that much of China was occupied by Japan at this time.

Needham did much more than was requested of him and the result was ther idea of creating a masterwork that would record the history of China's scientific invention, which was much greater and impressive than was commonly believed in the West at the time. Thus began Needham's multi-volume masterpiece which is still considered a classic today.

Winchester's genius is first being able to spot the seed of a good story, in this case acquiring a single volume of Needham's "Science and Civilisation [sic] In China". Next is Winchester's ability and willingness to research, which has been evident in all his books. It is indeed the glue that makes his compelling stories possible. No detail is to small, apparently, to escape Winchester's scrutiny. One can only imagine how much Winchester is forced to leave out. Finally, Winchester is a superb, mellifluous writer. He is one of the few today who can (and does) use almost archaic or very rarely used words properly to make his point. Unlike the poseurs writing in some magazines, Winchester uses the words properly and not merely in an attempt to impress.

It is remarkable that Winchester was able to fully describe Needham's life in a mere 265 pages. Other authors might have taken several hundred more, but Winchester has a laudable economy of style.

Joseph Needham was certainly a very interesting man who led a very interesting life, but without Simon Winchester, Needham most likely would have slipped into oblivion in the not very distant future.

I have few criticisms of this book. I found one editing error in the book, a near-miracle these days, where Winchester refers to the use of chopsticks in China for the past thirty decades. I believe the reference may have been intended to be to centuries, not decades. Next, in describing Needham's politics which were unabashedly left-wing, Winchester makes his own views apparent, which I felt was out of character for him and inappropriate to the book. These are small issues and do not detract from the book as a whole.

Overall, "The Man Who Loved China" is a fantastic history of an extraordinary man written by a truly competent author. Very much worth reading.

Jerry

Winchester is to the world of nonfiction what Steinbeck is to fiction. His writing is lush and literate with people and places described in both the letter and spirit of their reality. My book club has selected a Simon Winchester book the last two years and, "The Man Who Loved China" will be recommended for next year.

In, "The Man Who Loved China" Winchester paints a picture of Joseph Needham that is at once three dimensional and larger than life. From the first paragraph you know that the book is going to be pure Winchester and pure enjoyment. But, and this is the most intriguing part of this book, Needham's love for and insights into China--its history, culture and science--distilled for us by Simon Winchester are instantly relevant to the news coming from China today.

Whether you love China, are intrigued with Joseph Needham, or enjoy the superlative prose of Simon Winchester, this is the book for you.

By writing an intriguing and seemingly forthright biography of Joseph Needham, Winchester peels away years of myopic Western thinking about the backwardness of China. Needham roars to life as a fascinating, flirtatious Cambridge don filled with contradictions. Though he leaned way left as an English socialist with a fawning and blindness to Red China, the biography commendably focuses on Needham's persistent and life long work in gathering the background and writing his magnus opus, Science and Civilization in China. Winchester confronts what he calls the Needham question; what caused Chinese invention and scholarship to come to an abrupt halt in the 15th century? The explanation is plausible and understandable. With a long addendum at the end of the book listing the inventions of China, Winchester's scholarship is a welcome bon voyage for one's trip to China.

China is a vast country, and Joseph Needham (1900-95) was and remains a man so much larger than life that the two seem very well suited to each other. I remember Needham as the Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University when I matriculated there as a young man in 1975, though he retired from the Mastership one year later. The Needham Research Institute at Cambridge for the study of East Asian history, science and technology preserves his name in perpetuity, while in China he is known as Li Yuese.

The descriptions I heard as an undergraduate of Needham as a "Marxist Catholic" and "a great Chinese scholar" barely do justice to the man. Though I never remember a conversation with the Great Man and was quite in awe of him, I often saw his slightly stooping figure - crowned somewhat mysteriously by a beret - walking in the old courts of the College. (He once sent me a telegram which I do remember verbatim and treasure to this day: "Elected Scholarship Caius College. Congratulations Needham Master.")

Simon Winchester's timely book is an overdue tribute to this great British academic-eccentric. Joseph Needham deserves fame outside Cambridge and China, and this carefully crafted work will surely supply it.

Ian Ruxton, editor of The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Envoy in Peking (1900-06), Vol. 1 of two and The Semi-Official Letters of British Envoy Sir Ernest Satow from Japan and China (1895-1906).

Simon Winchester certainly has the creative power to immortalize anyone or thing he writes about, and so it is with the life of Joseph Needham (1900-1995), a Cambridge scholar polymath. Needham is probably obscure to most people, but among his Don peers he is a legendary as the writer of a massive encyclopedia on Chinese science and civilization designed to answer that great question: Why was China the mother lode of scientific and cultural innovation for so long, and why did it come to a stop by the 15th century - why didn't the Industrial revolution happen in China? At one point China was making 15 great innovations per century (paper, compass, stirrup, etc..), according to Needham, but then the country stagnated and for the last 500 years or so had a reputation for backwardness and poverty. Similar to Jared Diamond's "Yali Question" (why did Europe have "cargo" and Yali didn't?), Needham set out to find answers by cataloging the history of Chinese innovation. He created a massive multi-volume encyclopedia of such prodigious learning, value and length it has been compared with James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary, or Sidney Lee and the Dictionary of National Biography.

I've now read all four of Winchesters biographies (The Professor and the Madman (1998), The Map That Changed the World (2001), The Meaning of Everything (2003)) and I would rank "China" as good as 'The Meaning', not as good as 'Professor' and better than "Map". However Winchester has done something different this time and I hope he builds on it in the future, he has made the subject relevant on a global level - the rise of China and discovery of its past history and importance. More than a well-told and fascinating story of an eccentric English professor rescued from the obscurity of the archives, 'The Man Who Loved China' in a way is about the bigger picture of the rise and future of the largest nation on Earth, one of the central events of the 21st century.

There are 2 facets of Simon Winchester's work that make him one of my favorite authors. Firstly, he brings amazing players in History forward that I very often have never heard of. Secondly, he makes reading History tremendously fascinating. The latter should be a given, how can our past be anything but fascinating? The reality is that History books can be painful to read.

Noel Joseph Terrence Montgomery Needham is the subject of Mr. Winchester's 19th work, sound familiar? Not to me. However by the end of the book I look forward to seeking out more about this man as Mr. Winchester has a knack for catalyzing a reader's interest well beyond the book he offers. Professor Needham was a astonishing man who filled his 94 years with remarkable travels, eccentric behavior and a decision so poor the reader will ask was he a fool or a knave? (Question posed by the author)

What is not in dispute is the marvelous history of China Professor Needham documented through first hand investigation over thousands of miles traveled in China (many in war time) and the decades of research that followed. The only other historian that comes to mind as being so single minded in his pursuit of a subject is Sir Martin Gilbert and his decades long work on Sir Winston Spencer Churchill.

The work is also timely as it coincides with China's re-entry as a focal point for the world. China's existence is best measured in millennia and her scientific contributions when listed are nearly as long and often pre-date conventional wisdom on who was first with a given invention. Think you know where printing was first documented, suspension bridges first built, how about the compass, blood circulation or perhaps a flame-thrower?

China's recent history is no indicator of its fantastic past and the latter may more likely be an indicator of what is yet to come. This is another great read by a wonderful author who never disappoints.

There are 2 facets of Simon Winchester's work that make him one of my favorite authors. Firstly, he brings amazing players in History forward that I very often have never heard of. Secondly, he makes reading History tremendously fascinating. The latter should be a given, how can our past be anything but fascinating? The reality is that History books can be painful to read.

Noel Joseph Terrence Montgomery Needham is the subject of Mr. Winchester's 19th work, sound familiar? Not to me. However by the end of the book I look forward to seeking out more about this man as Mr. Winchester has a knack for catalyzing a reader's interest well beyond the book he offers. Professor Needham was a astonishing man who filled his 94 years with remarkable travels, eccentric behavior and a decision so poor the reader will ask was he a fool or a knave? (Question posed by the author)

What is not in dispute is the marvelous history of China Professor Needham documented through first hand investigation over thousands of miles traveled in China (many in war time) and the decades of research that followed. The only other historian that comes to mind as being so single minded in his pursuit of a subject is Sir Martin Gilbert and his decades long work on Sir Winston Spencer Churchill.

The work is also timely as it coincides with China's re-entry as a focal point for the world. China's existence is best measured in millennia and her scientific contributions when listed are nearly as long and often pre-date conventional wisdom on who was first with a given invention. Think you know where printing was first documented, suspension bridges first built, how about the compass, blood circulation or perhaps a flame-thrower?

China's recent history is no indicator of its fantastic past and may more likely be an indicator of what is yet to come. This is another great read by a wonderful author who never disappoints.