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Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China
 
 
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Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (Hardcover)

by Simon Winchester (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £20.00
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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (P.S.) by Simon Winchester

Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China + The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (P.S.)
Price For Both: £19.81

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Viking (25 Sep 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0670913782
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670913787
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 78,718 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #60 in  Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Engineering

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Product Description

USA Today

'Needham's story is phenomenal. This is the rare book where you wish the author had included more detail, not less'


Wall Street Journal

'Captivating. Makes the most obscure topic seem as if it should be on the front of that day's newspaper'
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit disappointing, 1 Feb 2009
By D. Livesley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Joseph Needham was obviously a brilliant and fascinating man. However this book left me with the impression that perhaps he did not leave enough personal (as opposed to academic) material to make a really satisfactory biography. While much of the material in the book is interesting, I was not left with much sense of what 'made him tick'. The account is also very patchy - a lot of detail about a few relatively short episodes in his life, with long gaps between them - and in places spends several pages talking about someone else who is relatively peripheral to the story. I'd recommend it to people with an interest in Needham's work, but not as a great piece of biography.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A great tale, 18 Aug 2009
By C. Crispin "Shanghai Crispin" (Shanghai, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I found this to be a great and gripping story about the creation of a masterpiece of academic work. I did not read this as a biography rather how an academic stumbled into a new life in and around China and wrote up the fascinating science and civilisation that he found there. Rather like the book about the creation of the Shorter English Dictionary - probably more interesting than the work it is introducing. A good read.
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