Some readers will be drawn to this survey of traditional Chinese science by the idea that humanity has evolved more than one tradition of natural science that deserves to be taken seriously as a study in itself. Others will wish to explore the possibility that by reconstructing and imaginatively adopting the viewpoint of so different a culture, they might become more critical in judging what aspects of the West's Scientific Revolution grew out of local pressures and prejudices rather than out of the inner necessities of science itself.The volume falls naturally into two complementary parts. The first provides the reader with perspectives on the work of Joseph Needham, whose monumental, multi-volume "Science and Civilisation in China" is so largely responsible for the growing awareness on the part of inquiring people everywhere that the Chinese technical traditions reached a high level, and that the birth of modern science and technology owes a great deal to them. Needham's work has often been cited as the greatest one-man historical compilation of the twentieth century.Needham himself has contributed an opening "Meditation" to "Chinese Science, " in which he recapitulates the motive forces and ideals behind his life's work--of which the historical study of Chinese science is only one aspect. Derek J. de Solla Price then provides biographical material on Needham and gives an account of the genesis and evolution of his "magnum opus." Needham's central concern with the effect of social and economic factors on the rate of scientific and technological change is examined by A. C. Graham. Shigeru Nakayama demonstrates through a study of all of Needham's publications the presence of a connected philosophy of history and of science that Needham evolved as a young biochemist concerned with the organization and development of life.The more numerous essays in the second part of the book extend Needham's work of mapping out the areas of Chinese science, venturing into provinces hitherto "terra incognita." The contributors cover the Chinese world view, astronomy, optics, pharmacology, and medicine.In particular, they discuss the Chinese concept of nature (in an essay written by Mitukuni Yosida); the development, and limiting factors on the development, of Chinese astronomy (Kiyosi Yabuuti); the Mohist optics of ca. 300 B.C. (A. C. Graham and N. Sivin); the use of elixir plants, as described in the pharmaceutical manual of the adept Lu Ch'un-yang (Ho Peng Yoke, Beda Lim, and Francis Morsingh); "Man as a Medicine," the traditional therapy using drugs derived from the human body (William C. Cooper and N. Sivin); and the early history of anesthesia in China and Japan (Saburo Miyasita). The book closes with a critical bibliography citing books and articles in Western languages (N. Sivin).The book is the second in The MIT East Asian Science Series.

Distinguished historian Benjamin A Elman's collective volume on the history of science in imperial China, brings together over 30 years of historical literature on the subject. With updates to the literature and new material including transcripts of podcasts and translated interview articles, Science in China takes the reader on a journey starting in the early 17th century with the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in China, and ending with the Protestant missions in the 19th century. These two milestone encounters brought Western sciences to local Chinese scholars with great success in shaping modern Chinese science. Elman studies the interaction between Western and Chinese sciences through philological research and evidence, and treats the two encounters not as separate events but as a continuum of creative exchange of scientific knowledge and discourse.

Here, at last, is the massively updated and augmented second edition of this landmark encyclopedia. It contains approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics. This unique reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method. You’ll also find material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science.

In Fieldnotes from a Depth Psychological Exploration of Evil, Robin L. Gordon presents an accessible account of an attempt to define and understand the nature of evil. Gordon takes on the role of guide to this confusing land, tying together threads of Jungian theory, philosophy, etymology, neuroscience and history, as we are led on a personal journey of discovery. Gordon begins by analysing what a twelfth-century meeting between Chinggis Khan and Taoist priest Ch’ang-Ch’un can tell us about the presence of opposing traits and the nature of evil in human beings. We learn what depth psychology has said about evil and the shadow part of our psyches, and examine examples of human behaviour throughout history to understand the etymological, philosophical and historical understandings and definitions of evil. Gordon’s own relationship with her work, and the feelings that arise when researching the psychological framework of Nazi doctors, genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia and Syria, and the functionality of serial killers, are interrogated. We then return to Chinggis Khan’s and Ch’ang-Ch’un’s relationship, attempting to build a real and practical definition of "evil", and assessing their dialogues as a metaphor for Jung’s views of the transcendent function. Fieldnotes from a Depth Psychological Exploration of Evil will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, sociology, criminology and philosophy. It will also be a key resource for Jungian analysts and psychotherapists interested in the study of evil and its impact on society and the psyche, as well as anyone investigating and redefining their own meanings of evil, past and present.

These writings, representing over a generation of work by one of our most acute commentators on Chinese history, are collected here for the first time and introduced with a masterly prologue. They cut across the boundaries of different fields of knowledge to better understand modern China and traditional Chinese culture. Schwartz's writings are deeply concerned with the conceptual frameworks and presumptions which we as twentieth-century Westerners bring to bear in our study of foreign cultures. He brings the entire complexity concerning modernity to his analysis of the millennial political, social, and cultural history of China. This is also an excavation of the conscious life of the Chinese past, an interpretation of the persistent dominant cultural and sociopolitical orientations of Chinese culture. The constancies of behavior and attitudes are made plain in the contingencies and complexities of short-durational and generational history.

In this wide-ranging study, Sucheta Mazumdar offers a new answer to the fundamental question of why China, universally acknowledged one of the most developed economies in the world through the mid-eighteenth century, paused in this development process in the nineteenth. Focusing on cane-sugar production, domestic and international trade, technology, and the history of consumption for over a thousand years as a means of framing the larger questions, the author shows that the economy of late imperial China was not stagnant, nor was the state suppressing trade; indeed, China was integrated into the world market well before the Opium War. But clearly the trajectory of development did not transform the social organization of production or set in motion sustained economic growth.

How did the Chinese in the 19th century deal with the enormous influx of Western science? What were the patterns behind this watershed in Chinese intellectual history? This work deals with those responsible for the translation of science, the major issues they were confronted with, and their struggles; the Chinese translators’ views of its overpowering influence on, and interaction with their own great tradition, those of the missionary-translators who used natural theology to propagate the Gospel, and those of John Fryer, a ‘secular missionary’, who founded the Shanghai Polytechnic and edited the Chinese Scientific Magazine. With due attention for the techniques of translation, the formation of new terms, the mechanisms behind the ‘struggle for survival’ between the, in this case, chemical terms, all amply illustrated at the hand of original texts. The final chapter charts the intellectual influence of Western science, the role of the scientific metaphor in political discourse, and the translation of science from a collection of mere ‘techniques’ to a source of political inspiration.

A Chinese Physician is the portrait of a 16th century medical writer and clinical practitioner. Drawing on socio-economic/biographic, textual, and gender analysis along side a variety of sources, from hagiographical biographies to medical case histories, the book tells three very different but complementary stories about what it was to practise medicine in 16th century China. Woven together, these stories combine to create a multi-dimensional portrayal that brings to life the very human experiences, frustrations and aspirations of a well respected and influential physician who struggled to win respect from fellow practitioners and loyalty from patients. The book creates a vibrant and colourful picture of contemporary medical practice and at the same time deepens our understanding of the interrelationship between gender culture and medicine.

Medievalism and medieval medicine are vibrant subfields of medieval studies, enjoying sustained scholarly attention and popularity among undergraduates. Popular perceptions of medieval medicine, however, remain understudied. This book aims to fill that lacuna by providing a multifaceted study of medical medievalism, defined as modern representations of medieval medicine intended for popular audiences. The volume takes as its starting point the fictional medieval detective Brother Cadfael, whose observations on bodies, herbs, and death have shaped many popular conceptions of medieval medicine in the Anglophone world. The ten contributing authors move beyond Cadfael by exploring global medical medievalisms in a range of genres and cultural contexts. Beyond Cadfael is organized into three sections, the first of which engages with how disease, injury, and the sick are imagined in fictitious medieval worlds. The second, on doctors at work, looks at medieval medical practice in novels, films and television, and public commemorative practice. These essays examine how practitioners are represented and imagined in medieval and pseudo-medieval worlds. The third section discusses medicine designed for and practiced by women in the Middle Ages and today, with a focus on East Asian medical traditions. These essays are guided by the recognition that medieval medical practices are often in dialogue with contemporary medical practices that fall outside the norms of Western biomedicine.

Published in 1999. A common theme linking these papers is that of the interaction of élite and popular traditions, as found in the writings and folktales of Yuan and Ming China. The first studies focus on historical writings, not just as topics of intellectual and cultural history, but as foundations for understanding the sources of that time and seeing how earlier periods were viewed - for example, in the composition of the Liao, Chin and Sung histories at the Mongol-Yuan court in the 1340s. A second cluster examines a number of popular legends in which Mongol and Chinese elements can be seen to mix: the use of a bowshot in choosing a site, as in the story of the founding of Peking; the legends of the foundation of the Ming dynasty; or the image and fictionalisation of the great Ming statesman, Liu Chi.