In recent decades various versions of Chinese medicine have begun to be widely practised in western countries, and the academic study of the subject is now well established. However, there are still few scholarly monographs that describe the history of Chinese medicine and there are none at all on the medieval period. The collection presented here is an example of the kind of international collaboration of research teams, centres and individuals that is required to begin to study the source materials adequately. The primary sources for this research come from a collection of medieval...

This is a study and translation of the Zhou bi suan jing, a Chinese work on astronomy and mathematics which reached its final form around the first century AD. The author provides the first easily accessible introduction to the developing mathematical and observational practices of ancient Chinese astronomers and shows how the generation and validation of knowledge about the heavens in Han dynasty China related closely to developments in statecraft and politics. The book will be of equal interest to historians of science and those studying the history of Chinese culture.

This book is a history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the movements of the heavens and the heavenly bodies that took place during those four and a half centuries, and tells the stories of the institutions and individuals involved in those changes. It gives clear explanations of technical practice in observation, instrumentation, and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years - but it...