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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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The Man
Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked
the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Legend The
latest example of the inadequacy of my education to date is that at age 58 I had
not heard of Professor Joseph Needham until I read Simon Winchester’s book, The Man
Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked
the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. Needham lived from 1900 to 1995 and
was a Cambridge professor. He wrote a 24 volume masterwork titled Science and Civilization in China that
explained China to the West in new ways. Here’s an excerpt of Winchester’s
book, from the end of Chapter 5, “The Making of His Masterpiece,” pp.
197-198: As word of the project spread,
the honors began to trickle in. One that caused a peculiarly British
kerfuffle came from the Republic of China, and was called with appropriate
grandiloquence the Order of the Brilliant Star with Cravat. Needham was told
about it by the Chinese embassy in October 1947, was naturally thrilled, and
casually asked his former bosses at the Foreign Office if accepting the honor
would cause any diplomatic problems or offense. To his considerable
astonishment he was told that yes, it would, and under no circumstances was
he going to be allowed to wear a foreign honor unless given personal
permission by His Majesty the King. It took nearly two years for
this permission to be secured. Letters from lofty figures in the various
dusty British government departments that dealt either with protocol or
treaties or had access to the corridors of Buckingham Palace tut-tutted
their way around Whitehall. Eyebrows were raised at the notion that any
foreigner could legitimately honor a man so exalted as a British diplomat
(which is what Needham had been during the period for which
the Chinese
wanted to honor him). Discreet working lunches were held in offices at
Westminster, and even more hushed dinners were held in clubs on Pall Mall,
all to discuss this unprecedented (and to some, rather impertinently
sycophantic) gesture. Finally,
in June 1949, Sir Alan Lascelles, a courtier of huge distinction at the
monarch's side, agreed that Joseph Needham's work had done much to better
relations between London and the Nationalist government, now back in Nanjing.
He thus wrote to Needham at Caius College saying formally, "His Majesty
King George VI has been Pleased to Give Restricted Permission for N. J. T. M.
Needham, Esq. To Wear the Order of the Brilliant Star with Cravat Essentially
while in China and in the Presence of High Officials in China." The
irony of fate intervened. It all turned out to be much too late. In China the
Communists were fast assuming
power; the People's Republic was
declared the following October; and four months after the king had given his
permission, Chiang Kai-shek, who had signed
the warrant for Needham's award, fled for Taipei. Joseph Needham's
much-vaunted honor, the source of so much fuss in London, had become
overnight no more than a bauble, recognized only in Taiwan, and except as a
collector's curio, barely worth the paper it was written on. Moreover, at about the same
time, suddenly, and without any warning, Joseph Needham made the most
terrible blunder. He made a decision, based on his lifelong
romantic flirtation with international communism, that very nearly
killed the entire project, almost before
the first volume ever appeared.
It was a fall from grace, and one for which Joseph Needham had no one to
blame but himself, and it haunts the project even to this day. It
all came about by way of a mysterious telephoned invitation from a conference
room in the capital of Norway. The caller was Chinese, and once the static on
the line had cleared, he turned out to be one of Need-ham's oldest wartime
friends. Would Joseph care to leave Cambridge for a while, the caller asked,
and come back for a spell to China? Needham’s lifelong accomplishments
are outsized, and he is a legend of the 20th century. If, like me,
you know little or nothing about him, read The Man
Who Loved China. Steve
Hopkins, October 20, 2008 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Man Who Loved China.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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