I haven’t read it, but there’s a new book out called The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom that I’d like to get my hands on at some point. It chronicles the life of Sinologist Joseph Needham (1900-1995), who wrote Science and Civilization in China, an 18 volume (he’d intended 24) encyclopedic account of China’s achievements in science and technology.

Actually, this Washington Post graph teases it well:

But it is the famous “Needham question,” which asks why the country failed to industrialize when Europe did, despite its prior achievements in printing, explosives, navigation, hydraulics, ceramics and statecraft, that may revive his legacy and compel re-reading of his 24-volume masterwork. As China transforms into an industrial powerhouse, we may ask the inverse question: Why is China now booming after centuries of relative stagnation, and on what traditions will it draw?

Needham was also apparently a womanizer, a chain smoker and a communist. He married a Chinese woman in England, learned Chinese from here and fell in love with the country.

The author is Simon Winchester, who wrote The Professor and the Madman, a fun read about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.