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Article: Chinese whisperer
- Article from:
- New Statesman
- Article date:
- October 20, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright New Statesman Ltd. Oct 20, 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Chinese whisperer Isabel Hilton Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China Simon Winchester Viking, 336 pp, £20
As China re-emerges as a world economic power, the so-called Needham question has reappeared in contemporary form. Joseph Needham, brilliant scholar and polymath, whose 24-volume magnum opus, Science and Civilisation in China, was to transform the way that country was understood in the west, began with this question: why, given what he had discovered about the advanced technical achievements by the Chinese from earliest times until the 15th century, did China not go on to develop modern science and become a great industrial power? Today the question is ...