Synopsis
When did the West discover Chinese healing traditions? Most people might point to the "rediscovery" of Chinese acupuncture in the 1970s. In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes leads us back, instead, to the thirteenth century to uncover the story of the West's earliest known encounters with Chinese understandings of illness and healing. As Westerners struggled to understand new peoples unfamiliar to them, how did they make sense of equally unfamiliar concepts and practices of healing? Barnes traces this story through the mid-nineteenth century, in both Europe and, eventually, the United States. She has unearthed numerous examples of Western missionaries, merchants, diplomats, and physicians in China, Europe, and America encountering and interpreting both Chinese people and their healing practices, and sometimes adopting their own versions of these practices. A medical anthropologist with a degree in comparative religion, Barnes illuminates the way constructions of medicine, religion, race, and the body informed Westerners' understanding of the Chinese and their healing traditions. (20060809)
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About the Author
Linda L. Barnes is Director of the Masters Program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences, at Boston University School of Medicine. She holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at BUSM and in the Division of Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University.
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Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
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Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Very good condition. Soft cover. No writing or highlighting on pages. Synopsis: In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes goes back to the thirteenth century to uncover the story of the West's earliest known encounters with Chinese understandings of illness and healing. Barnes traces this story through the mid-nineteenth century. She has unearthed examples of Westerners encountering and interpreting both Chinese people and their healing practices. The author is a medical anthropologist with a degree in comparative religion. Seller Inventory # ABE-1730152542415
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Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
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Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
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ISBN 10: 0674023978
ISBN 13: 9780674023970
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Seller: killarneybooks, Inagh, CLARE, Ireland
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Oversized paperback, xiii + 458 pages, b&w images in text, NOT ex-library. Minor handling wear, book is clean and bright throughout with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Spine free of vertical creases. -- Contents: List of Illustrations; Introduction; 1. First Impressions: Until 1491; 2. A New Wave of Europeans: 1492-1659; 3. Model State, Medical Men, and "Mechanick Principles": 1660-1736; 4. Sinophiles, Sinophobes, and the Cult of Chinoiserie: 1737-1804; 5. Memory, History, and Imagination: 1805-1848; Conclusion; Notes; Abbreviations; Bibliography; Index -- A masterful historical and anthropological account of how China's healing traditions have long shaped and challenged Western understandings of medicine, culture, and belief. Linda L. Barnes, a distinguished medical anthropologist and scholar of comparative religion, takes readers on an expansive journey that spans more than six centuries, from the first European encounters with Chinese healing knowledge in the 13th century to the eve of modern biomedicine in the mid-19th century. Through meticulous research and vivid narrative, she reconstructs a story not just of medical transmission, but of cultural interpretation, intellectual curiosity, and the enduring tension between fascination and misunderstanding. This is not a tale of immediate acceptance or clear progression. Instead, Barnes shows how missionaries, merchants, diplomats, and physicians - whether in medieval Venice, Jesuit missions in Beijing, or colonial ports in North America - grappled with concepts of health, illness, and the human body that often stood in stark contrast to their own. From acupuncture and herbal pharmacology to cosmology, spiritual healing, and bodily balance, Chinese ideas challenged European frameworks shaped by Galenic humoral theory, Christian theology, and Enlightenment rationalism. What emerged was not a straightforward adoption, but a layered and sometimes conflicted set of responses: admiration, skepticism, mimicry, suppression, reinvention. Structured chronologically in five chapters, the book guides readers from early impressions before 1492 through the high tide of Jesuit engagement in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the rise of chinoiserie, the emergence of sinophobia, and the cultural reimaginings that accompanied imperialism and global commerce. Particularly compelling is Barnes's fourth chapter, "Sinophiles, Sinophobes, and the Cult of Chinoiserie," which captures the shifting European mood toward China and the implications this had for the reception of Chinese healing. Throughout, Barnes draws on a wealth of archival material - letters, travelogues, missionary reports, medical treatises - many of which she unearthed from sources previously overlooked in Western scholarship. What makes this book so vital is its framing: healing traditions are not studied in isolation, but as deeply embedded in religious worldview, social structure, and cross-cultural encounter. Medicine here is a window into how the West perceived and misperceived the East, and how these perceptions, in turn, helped define Western medical modernity. For scholars of medical history, sinology, anthropology, religious studies, and the history of science, Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts is indispensable. But it also speaks to broader audiences interested in the genealogy of global medicine and the cultural roots of alternative healing. It places contemporary interest in Chinese medicine into long historical context, showing that such traditions have been part of the Western imagination for far longer than generally assumed. Elegantly written and richly documented, the book's compelling synthesis of erudition and accessibility has earned it praise across disciplines. It reveals not just how Chinese medicine was perceived, but how Europe's own categories of knowledge (of race, religion, science, and the body) were tested and redefined in the encounter. Seller Inventory # 011246
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Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. When did the West discover Chinese healing traditions? Most people might point to the "rediscovery" of Chinese acupuncture in the 1970s. In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes leads us back, instead, to the thirteenth century to uncover the story of the West's earliest known encounters with Chinese understandings of illness and healing. As Westerners struggled to understand new peoples unfamiliar to them, how did they make sense of equally unfamiliar concepts and practices of healing? Barnes traces this story through the mid-nineteenth century, in both Europe and, eventually, the United States. She has unearthed numerous examples of Western missionaries, merchants, diplomats, and physicians in China, Europe, and America encountering and interpreting both Chinese people and their healing practices, and sometimes adopting their own versions of these practices. A medical anthropologist with a degree in comparative religion, Barnes illuminates the way constructions of medicine, religion, race, and the body informed Westerners' understanding of the Chinese and their healing traditions. When did the West discover Chinese healing traditions? Most people might point to the rediscovery of Chinese acupuncture in the 1970s. In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes leads us back, instead, to the thirteenth century to uncover the story of the West's earliest known encounters with Chinese understandings of illness and healing. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780674023970
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Condition: New. When did the West discover Chinese healing traditions? Most people might point to the rediscovery of Chinese acupuncture in the 1970s. In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes leads us back, instead, to the thirteenth century to uncover the story. Seller Inventory # 594871108
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Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
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