SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION IN CHINA Volume 6 Part II: Agriculture

NEEDHAM, Joseph (series editor), BRAY, Francesca (author).

ISBN 10: 0521250765 / ISBN 13: 9780521250764

Published by Cambridge University Press, London etc., 1986

About this Item

Black gilt-lettered spine and illustrated boards. f/[iece (Chinese with one red character)+ t.p. with red pub. logo. xxvii (inc. all prelims) + 724 + (4 blank), 271 figrues of various kinds inc. many full page; this is virtually As New but for small scrap of adhesion between last blank and recto rear end-paper of trivial significance. Apparently one of the scarcest titles in this series, perhaps the greatest scholarship project of the 20th century. 19.5 cm x 25 cm.

Seller Inventory # 014322

Bibliographic Details

• Title: SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION IN CHINA Volume 6 Part II: Agriculture
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, London etc.
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521250765
• ISBN 13: 9780521250764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 2nd Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • History of Science & Technology
  • Industry, Crafts, Technology, Occupations

About this title

Synopsis

This second part of the sixth volume of Joseph Needham's great enterprise is the first to be written by a collaborator. Francesca Bray, working closely with Dr Needham, has produced the most comprehensive study of Chinese agriculture to be published in the West. From a huge mass of source material, often confusing and obscure, and from first-hand study in China, she brings order and illumination to a crucial area of Chinese technological development. The main body of the book is an account of the technological history of agriculture, with major sections devoted to field systems, implements and techniques (sowing, harvesting, storing) and crop systems (what has grown and where and how crops rotated). The concluding section contrasts Europe's Agricultural Revolution with agrarian change in North China in the Han and with the 'Green Revolution' in South China in the Sung. In the theoretical analysis which concludes this section we find a vital contribution to the elucidation of the main question posed by Dr Needham's work: why did the Scientific Revolution which transformed the world take place in Europe and not in China?

Book Description

This second part of the sixth volume of Joeph Needham's great enterprise is an account of the technological history of agriculture, with major sections devoted to field systems, implements and techniques (sowing, harvesting, storing) and crop systems (what has grown and where and how crops rotated).