The NYRB China Archive
08.14.08
The Passions of Joseph Needham
from New York Review of Books
It is now a little over four hundred years since a scattering of Westerners first began to try to learn the Chinese language. Across that long span, the number of scholars studying Chinese has grown, but their responses to the challenges of Chinese...
The NYRB China Archive
08.14.08Why Didn’t Science Rise in China?
from New York Review of Books
In response to:The Passions of Joseph Needham from the August 14, 2008 issueTo the Editors:In his illuminating essay on Joseph Needham [ NYR, August 14], Jonathan Spence notes that early in his career Needham posed the question: “What were the...