Product Description: China’s most sophisticated system of computational astronomy was created for a Mongol emperor who could neither read nor write Chinese, to celebrate victory over China after forty years of devastating war. This book explains how and why, and reconstructs the observatory and the science that made it possible...read more

Product Description: In this engrossing book, two world-renowned scholars compare and contrast the cosmology, science, and medicine of China and Greece between 400 B.C. and A.D. 200. In the process they cast new light not only on thse two rich civilizations but also on the evolving character of science...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This collection of four essays explores the cultural boundaries of Chinese science and medicine, in particular their connections with the most general issues of abstract thought and religious experience. It concludes with bibliographic guides to important books and articles on the Taoist religion...read more

Product Description: A collection of essays which presents insights into the Chinese scientific tradition and its interaction with Western science. An introductory overview and biographical assessments of Shen Kua and Wang Hsi-shan are included in the discussion.

Product Description: The fifth volume of Dr Needham's immense undertaking, like the fourth, is subdivided into parts for ease of assimilation and presentation, each part bound and published separately. The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder and rockets; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics)...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Some readers will be drawn to this survey of traditional Chinese science by the idea that humanity has evolved more than one tradition of natural science that deserves to be taken seriously as a study in itself. Others will wish to explore the possibility that by reconstructing and imaginatively adopting the viewpoint of so different a culture, they might become more critical in judging what aspects of the West's Scientific Revolution grew out of local pressures and prejudices rather than out of the inner necessities of science itself...read more