"The Guide offers both an essential reference work for students of English and comparative literature and a stimulating overview of literary translation in English."--BOOK JACKET.

Originally published in 1986. This work remains of compelling interest to those concerned with the natural sciences and their social problems. It puts forward original and unorthodox ideas about the philosophy of and sociology of science, starting from the conviction that modern societies face deep problems arising from unresolved dilemmas about the meaning, content and technical applications of the theories of nature they employ. The book draws on insights developed within a variety of traditions to explore these problems, especially the work of Edmund Husserl and modern critical theory.

The period between the Peace of Utrecht and the French Revolution is brought into focus in this essay. Professor Manuel deals with the age of the philosophes and the enlightened despots, when belief in man's ability to achieve a good society through reason was in its first hopeful flower. The powerful pressures of that time are evaluated - the rapidly increasing population, the phenomenal growth of cities and industries, the greater facility of travel and transportation, The modern nation-state, as exemplified in France, England, the Hapsburg Empire, Prussia, and Russia, was growing strong and centralized. The relations of these states to one another are discussed.

The second volume of Dr Joseph Needham's great work Science and Civilisation in China is devoted to the history of scientific thought. Beginning with ancient times, it describes the Confucian milieu in which arose the organic naturalism of the great Taoist school, the scientific philosophy of the Mohists and Logicians, and the quantitative materialism of the Legalists. Thus we are brought on to the fundamental ideas which dominated scientific thinking in the Chinese middle ages. The author opens his discussion by considering the remote and pictographic origins of words fundamental in scientific discourse, and then sets forth the influential doctrines of the Two Forces and the Five Elements. Subsequently he writes of the important sceptical tradition, the effects of Buddhist thought, and the Neo-Confucian climax of Chinese naturalism. Last comes a discussion of the conception of Laws of Nature in China and the West.