Bøker av Joseph Needham

This volume, which is based on the Terry Lectures delivered at Yale University in 1935, deals with the problem of the unity of natural knowledge. It considers the cleavage between the inorganic and biological sciences, and between the theology of intelligibility and that of inexplicability. Under the heading "The Nature of Biological Order" it considers some of the opinions which biologists, physicists, and philosophers hold regarding the form of organization which living things exhibit. The discussion is continued under the headings "The Deployment of Biological Order" and "The Hierarchical Continuity of Biological Order," and the conclusion is reached that "the profounder our insight into the nature of organic form, the clearer does the unity of science become." "It is an erudite volume, intended for the serious student of the philosophical aspects of biological science. To such it brings the product of a mature and discerning mind, well-versed in all the devious ramifications of a profoundly significant vein of thought." -Scientific Book Club Review

First published in 1959 as the second edition of a 1934 original, this book describes the Western history of embryology from prehistoric concepts of foetal growth through Graeco-Roman antiquity to the close of the eighteenth century. The text is illustrated with plates and diagrams showing the development of scientific understanding over time.

First published in 1969, this volume discusses the valuable social and intellectual influences which have flowed to Europe from South as well as East Asia.

A reissue with a foreword and supplement, of a modern classic published in 1960. The invention of the mechanical clock was one of the most important turning points in the history of science and technology. This study revealed six centuries of mechanical clockwork preceding the first mechanical escapement clocks of the West of about AD 1300.

The historical civilization of China is, with the Indian and European-Semitic, one of the three greatest in the world, yet only relatively recently has any enquiry been begun into its achievements in science and technology.

This second part of the sixth volume of Joeph Needham's great enterprise is an account of the technological history of agriculture, with major sections devoted to field systems, implements and techniques (sowing, harvesting, storing) and crop systems (what has grown and where and how crops rotated).

The fifth volume of Dr Needham's immense undertaking, like the fourth, is subdivided into parts for ease of presentation and assimilation, each part bound and published separately. The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology.

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).

As Dr Needham's immense undertaking gathers momentum it has been found necessary to subdivide volumes into parts, each bound and published separately. The first two parts of Volume IV deal respectively with the physical sciences and with the diverse applications of physics in the many branches of mechanical engineering. The third deals with civil and hydraulic engineering and with nautical technology.

This study, the first of two parts, gives a comprehensive account of Chinese textiles and textile technology.

Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China series caused a seismic shift in western perceptions of China. But why did the scientific and industrial revolutions not happen in China? In the concluding volume of this series, Needham reflects on this question and gives fascinating insights into his great intellectual quest.

Under the Yi dynasty in Korea a remarkable series of astronomical instruments, star-charts and clocks was created. In this volume, four distinguished historians of Asian science demonstrate the context, purpose, nature and specific workings of these early scientific instruments.

The latest volume in Joseph Needham's magisterial review of China's premodern scientific and technological traditions introduces the history of medicine. Following the deaths of Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-Djen, a considerable amount of written material on the development of Chinese medicine awaited publication. This material has been gathered together by the editor, Nathan Sivin, in the five essays contained in this volume. They offer a broad and readable account of medicine in culture, including hygiene and preventive medicine, forensic medicine and immunology, and the examinations taken by some Chinese physicians for more than a thousand years. Professor Sivin has edited the essays, expanding them where appropriate and incorporating the results of recent research. His extensive introduction discusses the contributions of Needham and Lu, placing the essays in context, and surveys recent scholarship from China, Japan, Europe and the United States.

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).

After two volumes mainly introductory, Dr Needham now embarks upon his systematic study of the development of the natural sciences in China. The Sciences of the Earth follow: geography and cartography, geology, seismology and mineralogy. Dr Needham distinguishes parallel traditions of scientific cartography and religious cosmography in East and West, discussing orbocentric wheel-maps, the origins of the rectangular grid system, sailing charts and relief maps, Chinese survey methods, and the impact of Renaissance cartography on the East. Finally-and here Dr Needham's work has no Western predecessors-there are full accounts of the Chinese contribution to geology and mineralogy.

The second volume of Dr Joseph Needham's great work Science and Civilisation in China is devoted to the history of scientific thought. Beginning with ancient times, it describes the Confucian milieu in which arose the organic naturalism of the great Taoist school, the scientific philosophy of the Mohists and Logicians, and the quantitative materialism of the Legalists. Thus we are brought on to the fundamental ideas which dominated scientific thinking in the Chinese middle ages. The author opens his discussion by considering the remote and pictographic origins of words fundamental in scientific discourse, and then sets forth the influential doctrines of the Two Forces and the Five Elements. Subsequently he writes of the important sceptical tradition, the effects of Buddhist thought, and the Neo-Confucian climax of Chinese naturalism. Last comes a discussion of the conception of Laws of Nature in China and the West.

First published in 1936, this book contains the text of the Terry Lectures for 1934-5, originally delivered at Yale University. Needham discusses the nature, deployment, and hierarchical continuity of biological order, as well as the history of scientific investigation into animal development through embryology, genetics and the study of mitosis.

Surveying the conceptual history of logical terminology in ancient China, this unique work in the Science and Civilisation in China series examines how the basic features of classical Chinese language made it a suitable medium for science in ancient China.