The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the...

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the ... | Simon Winchester | Right Up Winchester's Alley

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The Man Who Loved ...

	The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the ... Simon Winchester Harper, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 52 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sinophilia orgy

I have decided to elevate Joseph Needham to the ranks of my primary heroes. That means he joins Vinegar Joe Stilwell (the American General who tried to teach Chiang Kai Shek how to run an army so that he might win a war; he failed, as you probably know) and Alfred Russell Wallace (the man who found that evolution works via natural selection, but had a marketing disadvantage to his colleague Charles Darwin; the theory is called Darwinism, not Wallacism, as you might know). Needham wrote close to 20000 pages on the history of Chinese science and civilization, he was a most amazing alround scientist. The 'book', or should we call it a library, is unsurpassed in his subject - but have you ever heard of it? I mean you, the non-expert on China. Let me know. I suspect very few people outside an inner circle ever heard of it.
Winchester has published quite a few books on diverse subjects. I mainly like his travel books: first a walk through South Korea, then a ship ride up the Yangzi. Given that he is an experienced travel writer, I am a bit puzzled by some of his geographical gaffes: flying over the hump from India to Kunming, the connection from British India to National China during WW2, W. claims the plane had to cross glaciers. Well, not likely. Better look it up on a map. Glacial melting can't have progressed that much since then. Or: Needham's first stop in China is Kunming, where he allegedly watches the sun set over the distant Tibetan hills on his first evening after arriving. Odd in view of the hundreds km distance from Kunming to Tibet and the fact that the city has its own hills to the West.
Apart from Needham's scientific formidability, he was also a prime specimen of British excentricity (they allow every excentricity in Cambridge, as long as it doesn't frighten the horses): a biochemist with highest distinctions early on, married to a brillant colleague, a freethinker, nudist, socialist, folk dancer, playboy, leftist activist, member of the left establishment, language genius, lay preacher (yes, he was also religious).
And then: he meets his lifetime love, a Chinese colleague from Nanjing (whom he will marry half a century later), who makes him learn the language. He manages to get an assignment with the Foreign Service during WW2 and moves to Chongqing in 43, as Counsellor to the Embassy.
That's the beginning of the end. The man starts researching and writing... 20 volumes? He is obsessed with Chinese history and goes on his decade long rampage.
As implied above, he was somewhat of a political fool, but it's hard for me to begrudge him that. Not everybody looked at it so generously though. For a while he had a key position in UNESCO, in charge of science (he put the S into UNECO), when Julian Huxley was the DG. The US pushed him out for his communist sympathies.
Worse was to come: he let himself be misused by China for Cold War propaganda in connection with the Korean War, as head of an 'independant' commission that was to investigate alleged US uses of biological weapons against Korea and China. From what is known today, no such thing happened, the whole show was staged by the Soviets and the Chinese, and Needham spoiled his name for years to come. He got blacklisted in the US for 20 years. He was just too naive and believed that everybody else was as honest and serious as he was himself.
One sad thing I learned from the book: the recent earthquake in Sichuan hit a place of magnificent historical importance, the great water works at Dujiangyan, built 250 BC, comprising dikes, dams, canals.

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Right Up Winchester's Alley

If you look back at the titles of some of Mr. Winchester's older books, it's clear that Joseph Needham, the subject of this book, isn't the only man who loves China. Clearly, Winchester himself has a fascination for Asia and China. Admittedly, I have not read these earlier titles, having come to Mr. Winchester--like many I suspect--through the pages of The Professor and the Madman. However, I have kept up with his work since then and it's nice to see him able to bring his passion for China to the fore again.

Today, Joseph Needham is most remembered for the decades he spent putting together Science and Civilization in China, a series of books documenting the many advances made in China that pre-date the better known inventions/inventors in the West. What this ultimately means, as it was the West that took widest advantage of scientific and technical successes, is open to debate; however, it is fascinating to think about how far ahead the Chinese must have been at various points in their history, even into antiquity. A less inward-looking culture might have changed the entire face of world history.

Mr. Winchester gives us tidbits of these scientific facts to contemplate, but this book is really about Needham himself: a Cambridge scholar who was undoubtedly brilliant but in many ways controversial. He was very sexually liberated for his time, being married to a devoted woman who tolerated his many affairs, including a long-term affair with a Chinese woman, Lu Gwei-djen, who was likely the inspiration for much of his passion about China. He was sympathetic to communism and maintained a connection to communist China even when such a relationship was frowned upon. He dabbled in realpolitik which often caused him grief. But in the end, it is his work that is best remembered.

He started his career as a very successful scientist who parlayed his success and love of China into a diplomatic assignment to the country at the height of World War II. In the midst of his diplomatic duties--being a materials conduit for Chinese scientists--he made a number of trips across China, collecting information and artifacts which he periodically shipped home. When he returned, instead of resuming his scientific work, he devoted the rest of his life to history, assessing the materials he'd brought back and writing his magnum opus.

Mr. Winchester has an amazing facility for telling the stories of eccentrics and science. Here, he shows his skills yet again. This is a wonderfully readable book about a comparatively unknown scholar who deserves better. Mr. Winchester has done Needham--and the reading public--a real service.

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The Most Amazing Man You've Never Heard Of

After hearing an interview on our local NPR affiliate with Simon Winchester, I bought this book in audio format in preparation for a long road trip. We were spellbound by this incredible story, listening almost non-stop to the 14 hour production. If you've never heard of Joseph Needham, don't feel bad - neither had we, or most anyone else I've asked. But he was one of the most interesting, eccentric, and brilliant people of the 20th century. The story is beautifully told by Simon Winchester, with anecdotes and historical background that amaze you. Such a detailed biography could stumble into confusing territory, but not in Winchester's skilled hands. The plot, Needham's life, unfolds in wondrous and surprising ways; I must have exclaimed 50 times "how could I not have known about this??" And the revelations about China are fascinating too - the remarkable history of an enlightened scientific culture, its slide into communism, and its economic resurgence. I strongly recommend this book.

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An eccentric visionary

As one who is inquisitively interested in the transitions of power within China, I found this eminently readable description of a brilliant British academic's efforts to provide tools for teaching and research to Chinese universities evacuated from Japanese occupation, a fascinating glimpse into the personalities and problems of the political protagonists of wartime China.

The Man Who Loved China

Having long been an admirer of Joseph Needham, and having read some of his magnificent work "Science and Civilisation in China", I was looking forward to this biography of Needham. I knew little of Needham's wartime introduction to China and was eager to learn more, but I especially wanted to know more about the direct research that went into his masterpiece. On the first topic, I was rewarded with a thrilling account of Needham's wartime travels, and that alone justified the book. However, I was rather disappointed to find less than fifty pages devoted to the scholarly aspects of "Science and Civilisation in China" -- especially when eighteen pages are devoted to the consequences of Needham's political naivete during the Korean war. In short, a worthwhile book, but I look forward to a fuller treatment of Needham's relationship to his masterwork.
Cris Whetton, Tampere, Finland, July 2008

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