Ronan 3: The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 3. Paperback
9780521315609, 0521315603-27se43
-
Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 3. An Abridgement of J.Needham's Original Text. Paperback
-
Colin A. Ronan
-
320 pages. 1986. Chinese contributions to nautical science and technology. In the original text, these subjects were dealt with in separate parts; in this abridgement they are coveniently presented in a single unified account. ....
- The book opens with an examination of what is perhaps the greatest single contribution of Chinese civilisation to nautical science, the magnetic compass. Then follow chapters on navigation, nautical history, and voyages and discoveries, together with design and methods of construction of Chinese shipping. A final chapter looks at nautical technology in war and peace. In the original text, the material covered here appeared in Volume IV Part I and Volume IV Part 3. In abridging the text, the opportunity has been taken to include the official Pin Yin transliterations alongside those of the original work
- Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China is a monumental piece of scholarship which breaks new ground in presenting to the Western reader a detailed and coherent account of the development of science, technology and medicine in China from the earliest times until the advent of the Jesuits and the beginnings of modern science in the late seventeenth century. It is a vast work, necessarily more suited to the scholar and research worker than the general reader. This paperback version, abridged and re-written by Colin Ronan, makes this extremely important study accessible to a wider public. The present book covers the material treated in volumes I and II of Dr Needham’s original work. The reader is introduced to the country of China, its history, geography and language, and an account is given of how scientific knowledge travelled between China and Europe. The major part of the book is then devoted to the history of scientific thought in China itself. Beginning with ancient times, it describes the milieu in which arose the schools of the Confucians, Taoists, Mohists, Logicians and Legalists. We are thus brought on to the fundamental ideas which dominated scientific thinking in the Chinese Middle Ages, to the doctrines of the Two Forces (Yin and Yang) and the Five Elements (wu hsing), to the impact of the sceptical tradition and Buddhist and Neo-Confucian thought.
|