The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, Simon Winchester

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

Simon Winchester

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Harper Perennial
  • Publish Date: Apr 28th, 2009
  • Pages: 336
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.34in - 0.85in - 0.58lb
  • EAN: 9780060884611
  • Categories: Science & TechnologyAsia - ChinaHistory

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food, Fuchsia Dunlop
Book Cover for: The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age, David N. Schwartz
Book Cover for: The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann, Ananyo Bhattacharya
Book Cover for: The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John Von Neumann, Ananyo Bhattacharya
Book Cover for: The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics, Mae Ngai
Book Cover for: Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson
Book Cover for: Beyond Genius: A Journey Through the Characteristics and Legacies of Transformative Minds, Bulent Atalay
Book Cover for: Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai, James Carter
Book Cover for: Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man, Mark Kurlansky
Book Cover for: Fortune's Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong, Vaudine England
Book Cover for: Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution, Tania Branigan
Book Cover for: Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, Claire L. Evans
Book Cover for: Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus, Maia Weinstock
Book Cover for: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Walter Isaacson
Book Cover for: The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China, Christopher I. Beckwith

About the Author

Winchester, Simon: -

Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

More books by Simon Winchester

Book Cover for: Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators and Fading Empires, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire, Simon Winchester
Book Cover for: Pacific LP, Simon Winchester