The Man Who Loved China

Simon Winchester's arch and clearly British inflection provides the perfect contextual narration for the true story of Joseph Needham, a British scientist who made his life work the study of China. Winchester's style can seem plodding and didactic to those looking for something faster paced and dramatic. The complexity of Chinese civilization, in contrast to the blatant Orientalism of the Far East by Europe, is one of the many dense themes he tackles as both writer and narrator. The movement among the three main elements of the book, from the historical information on ancient China, to the biographical events of Needham's life, and the events that led to his production of 17 volumes on Chinese society, is capably, if unimaginatively, handled by Winchester. M.R. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 10, 2008
Joseph Needham (1900–1995) is the man who “made China China
,” forming the West’s understanding of a sophisticated culture with his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China
, says bestselling author Winchester. In a life devoted to recording the Middle Kingdom’s intellectual wealth, Needham, an eccentric, brilliant Cambridge don, made a remarkable journey from son of a London doctor through scientist-adventurer to red scare target. In Winchester’s (The Professor and the Madman
) estimable hands, Needham’s story comes to life straightaway. From the biochemist’s arrival in WWII Chongqing (“the smells, of incense smoke, car exhaust, hot cooking oil, a particularly acrid kind of pepper, human waste, oleander, and jasmine”) to his steely discipline when crafting his research into prose (to an old friend: “I am frightfully busy. You come without an appointment, so I am afraid I cannot see you”), Winchester plunges the reader into the action with hardly a break. As the author notes in an outstanding epilogue—a swirling 12-page trip through the kaleidoscope of contemporary China—he is at pains to place Needham front and center in our understanding of the nation that now plays such a huge role in American life. B&w photos, maps.

Starred review from May 1, 2008
The masterpiece of the subtitle is Joseph Needham's "Science and Civilization in China", a multivolume unfinished work documenting China's stupendous early achievements in science and technology. Winchester, the prolific British author of many acclaimed books (e.g., "The Professor and the Madman"), loses no momentum here. Needham (190095), a brilliant and somewhat eccentric Cambridge biochemist who became entranced with the study of China's early scientific advances, is well worth a biography, and Winchester is just the writer to undertake it. He explores Needham's fascinating and sometimes controversial personal life, his travels to China, and especially the significance and topicality of his scholarship on the early accomplishments of Chinese science and technology: why did China achieve so much so early, and why did it cease doing so for several centuries? Winchester carries the exploration further: now that China has resumed its technological advances, where will it take itself and the world? These are major questions superbly posed in an accessible and provocative book. Essential for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/08.]Harold M. Otness, formerly with Southern Oregon Univ. Lib., Ashland

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2008
Needham (190095) was a Cambridge University don, left-wing enthusiast, and author of the multivolume, still-uncompleted Science and Civilization in China. Attributing this work with paradigm-shifting influence, Winchesters biographyreveals aman of unquenchable energy and curiosity, which kept Needhams contemporaries constantly wondering whathe wouldget up to next. The brilliant Needham precociously secured his academic future by his early twenties, but his specialty of biochemistry seemed only to compete with the myriad fascinations he adopted with adolescent glee and the innocence of a naf. Steam engines, religion, folk dances, foreign languages, and female company jostled in Needhams boisterous mind, much ofwhich is revealed throughthe diaries Needham kept all his life. One day in 1937, he recorded the arrival at his office, and soon in his bed, of Lu Gwei-djen, a Chinese biochemist. From this romance (tolerated by Mrs. Needham) a monumental book was born, conceived in the course of fantastic adventures to collect Chinese texts that Needham undertook as a British diplomat in World War II China. Sympathetic to the Communists, Needhams politics cast a pall over his career when he sanctioned Red allegations, almost certainly false, of American biological warfare during the Korean War. Reminiscent of Winchesters best-selling account of the OED (The Professor and the Madman, 1998), the capacious life of an academiccomes aliveinWinchesters skilled, insightful portrait.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)