A Cultural History of Modern Science in China

by Elman, Benjamin A.

• ISBN13: 9780674030428
• ISBN10: 0674030427
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-20
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Historians of science and Sinologists have long needed a unified narrative to describe the Chinese development of modern science, medicine, and technology since 1600. They welcomed the appearance in 2005 of Benjamin Elman's masterwork, On Their Own Terms. Now Elman has retold the story of the Jesuit impact on late imperial China, circa 1600-1800, and the Protestant era in early modern China from the 1840s to 1900 in a concise and accessible form ideal for the classroom. This coherent account of the emergence of modern science in China places that emergence in historical context for both general students of modern science and specialists of China.

Author Biography

Benjamin A. Elman is Professor of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Conventions	p. xi
Chinese Dynasties	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
The Jesuit Legacy	p. 15
Recovering the Chinese Classics	p. 36
The Rise of Imperial Chinese Manufacturing and Trade	p. 68
Science and the Protestant Mission	p. 100
From Textbooks to Darwin: Modern Science Arrives	p. 132
Government Arsenals Spur New Technologies	p. 158
The Displacement of Traditional Chinese Science and Medicine	p. 198
Appendixes
Tang Mathematical Classics	p. 229
"Science Outline Series," 1882-1898	p. 232
Table of Contents for the 1886 Primers for Science Studies	p. 234
Twenty-three Fields of the Sciences in the 1886 Primers for Science Studies	p. 235
Some Officially Selected Chinese Prize Essay Topics from the Shanghai Polytechnic	p. 237
Some Translations of Chemistry, 1855-1873	p. 239
Partial Chronological List of Arsenals, etc., in China, 1861-1892	p. 240
Notes	p. 243
Acknowledgments	p. 285
Index	p. 287
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