Picturing Technology in China

Although the history of technological and scientific illustrations is a well-established field in the West, scholarship on the much longer Chinese experience is still undeveloped. This work by Peter Golas is a short, illustrated overview tracing the subject to pre-Han inscriptions but focusing mainly on the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. His main theme is that technologi...

Although the history of technological and scientific illustrations is a well-established field in the West, scholarship on the much longer Chinese experience is still undeveloped. This work by Peter Golas is a short, illustrated overview tracing the subject to pre-Han inscriptions but focusing mainly on the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. His main theme is that technological drawings developed in a different way in China from in the West largely because they were made by artists rather than by specialist illustrators or practitioners of technology. He examines the techniques of these artists, their use of painting, woodblock prints and the book, and what their drawings reveal about changing technology in agriculture, industry, architecture, astronomical, military, and other spheres. The text is elegantly written, and the images, about 100 in all, are carefully chosen. This is likely to appeal to both scholars and general readers.

葛平德（Peter J. Golas，1937—2019），世界知名科技史学家，美国著名学者，丹佛大学名誉教授，专事研究中国传统社会经济和科技史，在丹佛大学讲授中国历史长达三十五年，曾荣获1997—1998年度丹佛大学杰出学者荣誉。著有《中国科学技术史》(Science and Civilisation in China)第五卷第十三分册。