Science in China, 16001900

Essays by Benjamin A Elman

Distinguished historian Benjamin A Elman's collective volume on the history of science in imperial China, brings together over 30 years of historical literature on the subject. With updates to the literature and new material including transcripts of podcasts and translated interview articles, Science in China takes the reader on a journey starting in the early 17th century with the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in China, and ending with the Protestant missions in the 19th century. These two milestone encounters brought Western sciences to local Chinese scholars with great success in shaping modern Chinese science. Elman studies the interaction between Western and Chinese sciences through philological research and evidence, and treats the two encounters not as separate events but as a continuum of creative exchange of scientific knowledge and discourse.

Contents:

• Introduction — From Value to Fact: The Emergence of Phonology as a Precise Discipline in Late Imperial China
• Native Traditions of Natural Studies during the Ming–Qing Transition, 1600–1800
• Some Comparative Issues — Ming–Qing Border Defense and Jesuit Learning in Late Imperial China
• The Jesuit Role as "Technical Experts" in "High Qing"
• Western Learning and Evidential Research in the 18th Century
• The China Prize Essay Contest and the Late Qing Promotion of Modern Science
• The Great Reversal: The "Rise of Japan" and the "Fall of China" after 1895
• Rethinking the 20th-Century Denigration of Traditional Chinese Science and Medicine in the 21st Century

Readership: Undergraduates and researchers in history of science, Chinese history, history of Chinese science, philology, and history of East Asia and East Asian science.
Key Features:

• Comprehensive volume on all writings of renown East Asian historian Benjamin A Elman on the history of science in imperial China
• New material and previously published works updated with contemporary research findings