On Their Own Terms

by Elman, Benjamin A.

• ISBN13: 9780674016859
• ISBN10: 0674016858
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

In On Their Own Terms, Benjamin A. Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900). By 1600 Europe was ahead of Asia in producing basic machines, such as clocks, levers, and pulleys, that would be necessary for the mechanization of agriculture and industry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Elman shows, Europeans still sought from the Chinese their secrets of producing silk, fine textiles, and porcelain, as well as large-scale tea cultivation. Chinese literati borrowed in turn new algebraic notations of Hindu-Arabic origin, Tychonic cosmology, Euclidian geometry, and various computational advances. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, imperial reformers, early Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Chinese Communists have all prioritized science and technology. In this book, Elman gives a nuanced account of the ways in which native Chinese science evolved over four centuries, under the influence of both Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.

Table of Contents

List of Maps, Illustrations, and Tables	xi
Chinese Dynasties	xv
Abbreviations	xix
Preface	xxi
Introduction	1	(60)
Prologue	3	(21)
Finding the Correct Conceptual Grid	4	(1)
What Should Be the Literati Theory of Knowledge?	5	(4)
Late Ming Classicism in the Context of Commercial Expansion	9	(7)
Printing Technology and Publishing	16	(4)
Naturalization of Anomalies in Ming China and Early Modern Europe	20	(4)
Ming Classification on the Eve of Jesuit Contact	24	(37)
Ordering Things through Names	24	(10)
Collecting the Collectors	34	(19)
Late Ming Statecraft, Mathematics, and Christianity	53	(4)
Collecting Things in Texts	57	(4)
Natural Studies and the Jesuits	61	(162)
The Late Ming Calendar Crisis and Gregorian Reform	63	(44)
Development of the Ming Astro-calendric Bureau	65	(8)
Evolution of the Late Ming Calendar Crisis	73	(7)
Gregorian Reform	80	(4)
Jesuits and Late Ming Calendar Reform	84	(23)
Sino-Jesuit Accommodations During the Seventeenth Century	107	(43)
European Scientia and Natural Studies in Ming-Qing China	107	(26)
Literati Attacks on Calendar Reform in the Early Qing	133	(11)
Ferdinand Verbiest and the Kangxi Emperor	144	(6)
The Limits of Western Learning in the Early Eighteenth Century	150	(40)
The Kangxi Emperor and Mei Wending	150	(10)
The Rites Controversy and Its Legacy	160	(9)
French Jesuits in the Kangxi Court	169	(14)
The Newtonian Century and the Limits of Scientific Transmission to China	183	(7)
The Jesuit Role as Experts in High Qing Cartography and Technology	190	(33)
Mensuration and Cartography in the Eighteenth Century	191	(9)
Cartography, Sino-Russian Relations, and Qing Imperial Interests	200	(5)
The Jesuit Role in Qing Arts, Instruments, and Technology	205	(18)
Evidential Research and Natural Studies	223	(58)
Evidential Research and the Restoration of Ancient Learning	225	(30)
Early Qing Critiques of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming	226	(1)
Medical Works and the Recovery of Antiquity	227	(9)
Chen Yuanlong and the Mirror of Origins Encyclopedia	236	(8)
Revival of Ancient Chinese Mathematics	244	(11)
Seeking the Truth and High Qing Mathematics	255	(26)
High Qing Views of the Investigation of Things	255	(7)
Mathematics in an Age of Evidential Research	262	(8)
Nativism and Early Nineteenth-Century Mathematics	270	(11)
Modern Science and the Protestants	281	(72)
Protestants, Education, and Modern Science to 1880	283	(37)
Protestant Missionaries in China	283	(13)
Protestants and Modern Science in Shanghai	296	(7)
Introduction of Modern Mathematics and the Calculus	303	(5)
The Shanghai Polytechnic and Reading Room	308	(12)
The Construction of Modern Science in Late Qing China	320	(33)
Early Science Primers	321	(2)
Edkins's Primers for Science and the Problem of Darwin in China	323	(9)
From the Scientific Book Depot to the China Prize Essay Contest	332	(8)
Prize Essay Topics and Their Scientific Content	340	(2)
Medical Missionaries since 1872 and Medical Questions as Prize Essay Topics	342	(3)
Natural Theology, Darwin, and Evolution	345	(8)
Qing Reformism and Modern Science	353	(84)
Government Arsenals, Science, and Technology in China after 1860	355	(41)
From Chinese Working for Missionaries to Missionaries Working for the Dynasty	356	(1)
Post-Taiping Reformers and Late Qing Science	357	(2)
The Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai	359	(9)
Technical Learning in the Jiangnan Arsenal and Fuzhou Navy Yard	368	(8)
Naval Warfare and the Refraction of Qing Reforms into Failure	376	(10)
Reconsidering the Foreign Affairs Movement	386	(10)
Displacement of Traditional Chinese Science and Medicine in the Twentieth Century	396	(27)
Western Learning Mediated through Japan	396	(2)
Science and the 1898 Reformers	398	(5)
From Traditional to Modern Mathematics	403	(2)
Modern Medicine in China	405	(3)
Influence of Meiji Japan on Modern Science in China	408	(15)
Appendixes
1 Tang Mathematical Classics	423	(2)
2 Some Translations of Chemistry, 1855--1873	425	(1)
3 Science Outline Series, 1882--1898	426	(1)
4 Partial Chronological List of Arsenals, etc., in China, 1861--1892	427	(1)
5 Table of Contents for the 1886 Primers for Science Studies (Gezhi qimeng)	428	(1)
6 Twenty-three Fields of the Sciences in the 1886 Primers for Science Studies	429	(1)
7 Science Compendia Published in China from 1877 to 1903	430	(3)
8 Some Officially Selected Chinese Prize Essay Topics from the Shanghai Polytechnic	433	(1)
9 Scientific Societies Formed between 1912 and 1927	434	(3)
Notes	437	(90)
Bibliography of Chinese and Japanese Sources	527	(14)
Acknowledgments	541	(2)
Credits	543	(2)
Index	545