The Man Who Loved China-轻识

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In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"— New York Times Book Review ) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"— Time ) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country. No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair. He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper—often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people. After the war, Needham was determined to tell the world what he had discovered, and began writing his majestic Science and Civilisation in China , describing the country's long and astonishing history of invention and technology. By the time he died, he had produced, essentially single-handedly, seventeen immense volumes, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever. Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great—related by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.

西蒙·温切斯特 Simon Winchester，中文名文思淼，英国著名作家、记者。1944年生，1966年牛津大学地质系毕业后，担任《卫报》（Guardian）及《星期日泰晤士报》（Sunday Times）的海外特派员。为《纽约时报》、《史密森学会月刊》（Smit hsonian）、《观察家》（Spectator）、《国家地理杂志》、BBC等媒体撰稿。2006年获得英国女王伊丽莎白二世的新年荣誉表彰，获官佐勋章。主要作品有：《OED的故事》（The Meaning of Everything）、《教授与疯子》（The Surgeon of Crowthorne）、《改变世界的地图》（The Map That Changed the World）、《大英帝国边境》（Outposts）等。