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Science and Civilisation in China
by Joseph Needham
edited by Kenneth Girdwood Robinson, University of Cambridge
2004

0521087325 Hardback

Published by: Cambridge University Press

Synopsis:
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China series. For nearly fifty years, Needham and his collaborators have revealed the ideals, concepts and achievements of China’s scientific and technological traditions from the earliest times to about 1800 through this great enterprise. During his long working lifetime, Needham kept in draft various essays, some written with collaborators, in which he set out his broad views on the Chinese social and historical context. These essays, edited by one of his closest collaborators, Kenneth Robinson, are contained in the present volume. A reading of this material makes it possible to reconstruct the assumptions and problematics that underpinned and drove the Needham project throughout the nearly one half century during which he was at the helm. The documents gathered here reveal the intellectual foundations of one of the greatest scholarly enterprises of the twentieth century.

Contents:
1. Prefaces; 2. Foreword Joseph Needham; 3. Science and society in east and west Joseph Needham; 4. The roles of Europe and China in the evolution of ecumenical science Joseph Needham; 5. The nature of Chinese society: a technical interpretation Huang Jen-yü and Joseph Needham; 6. History and human values: a Chinese perspective for science and technology Joseph Needham; 7. Literary Chinese as a language for science Kenneth Robinson and Joseph Needham; 8. General conclusions; 9. Joseph Needham: a soliloquy Kenneth Robinson; Bibliographies.