Hailed as "elegant and engaging" and "a fascinating journey from east to west and back again" (Financial Times ), this fascinating volume offers a sweeping comparative account of alternative medicine over four hundred years. Comparing the medical systems of China, India, and the west (both mainstream and alternative), historian Roberta Bivins ranges across the centuries and the continents, mapping the transmission of medical expertise from one culture to another and laying bare the roots of today's distinctions between alternative, complementary, and orthodox medicine. Bivins uses a wealth of...