Joseph Needham (1900–1995) is the man who “made China China
,” forming the West’s understanding of a sophisticated culture with his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China
, says bestselling author Winchester. In a life devoted to recording the Middle Kingdom’s intellectual wealth, Needham, an eccentric, brilliant Cambridge don, made a remarkable journey from son of a London doctor through scientist-adventurer to red scare target. In Winchester’s (The Professor and the Madman
) estimable hands, Needham’s story comes to life straightaway. From the biochemist’s arrival in WWII Chongqing (“the smells, of incense smoke, car exhaust, hot cooking oil, a particularly acrid kind of pepper, human waste, oleander, and jasmine”) to his steely discipline when crafting his research into prose (to an old friend: “I am frightfully busy. You come without an appointment, so I am afraid I cannot see you”), Winchester plunges the reader into the action with hardly a break. As the author notes in an outstanding epilogue—a swirling 12-page trip through the kaleidoscope of contemporary China—he is at pains to place Needham front and center in our understanding of the nation that now plays such a huge role in American life. B&w photos, maps. (May)
