Science and Civilisation in China
| Author | Joseph Needham |
|---|---|
| Published | 1959 |
| Format | Research paper |
TL;DR — Needham’s monumental history of Chinese science — this volume covering mathematics and the sciences of the heavens and earth.
The volume in which Needham, having finished the introductory volumes, “embarks upon his study of the development of the sciences in China” — beginning with mathematics: arithmetic and metrology, geometry, trigonometry, algebraic equations, binomial coefficients.
Needham’s project ran to seven volumes and many parts, and it did something singular: it established, against the assumption of the age, that China had a continuous and sophisticated scientific tradition — and then posed the question that carries his name, of why the scientific revolution nevertheless happened in Europe.
One of the great works of twentieth-century scholarship. Split into two parts here for storage; 1,032 pages.
Where this came from
1032 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.