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...

In the second volume of his abridgement of Joseph Needham's original text, Colin Ronan looks in detail at the early Chinese contributions to various sciences. The first section deals with mathematics, and it is shown that the Chinese works were comparable with the pre-Renaissance achievements of the old world. This account is written with the non-mathematician in mind. The text is next concerned with the sciences of astronomy and meteorology, followed by the Earth sciences: geography, cartography, geology, seismology and mineralogy. Volume 2 closes with a description of some aspects of...

This third volume of Colin Ronan's abridgement of Joseph Needham's monumental work is devoted to 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...

Digesting the main sections of Volume IV of Dr. Needham's magnum opus, this book is concerned with the immense advances made in early and medieval China in mechanical engineering. It discusses in simple but eminently readable terms the status of engineers, their tools and materials, then basic mechanical principles, followed by machinery powered by animals, man and even by steam, vehicles for land transport, six centuries of hidden clockwork, windmills and aeronautics. Since China was far ahead of the West in ancient and medieval times, this volume helps make clear the immense debt owed by...

Digesting the main sections of Volume IV of Dr. Needham's magnum opus, this book is concerned with the immense advances made in early and medieval China in mechanical engineering. It discusses in simple but eminently readable terms the status of engineers, their tools and materials, then basic mechanical principles, followed by machinery powered by animals, man and even by steam, vehicles for land transport, six centuries of hidden clockwork, windmills and aeronautics. Since China was far ahead of the West in ancient and medieval times, this volume helps make clear the immense debt owed by...

This fifth volume of Colin Ronan's abridgement of Joseph Needham's monumental work is concerned with the remarkable engineering feats made during the early and medieval periods. No other country did more in civil engineering, both as to scale and skill, than China. The book opens with an account of the road system, which compared favorably with that of the Roman Empire. Naturally, the Great Wall of China is covered in some detail within the social context of walls, which--more than any other structure--mark the basic features of Chinese communities. The Chinese genius for town planning and...