Joseph Needham is one of the world’s experts on China and her culture, especially the history of science and technology in that great civilization. No one is better qualified to write about the contrasts and similarities between China and Europe, their mutual relations, and the ideas they have had of each other.
Reprinted here are some of the most significant of his essays, lectures and broadcasts on these subjects, together with some more personal thoughts stimulated by his own travels and experience in China, including a number of poems that he has on occasion felt moved to write...