A Cultural History of Modern Science in China

摘要

Benjamin Elman has done the profession a big service by writing a cultural history of modern science, medicine and technology in China, a companion to his On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900 (Harvard University Press, 2005). By "modern" Elman refers to the period between 1550 and 1900, a period that started with Chinese literati elites encountering and gradually appreciating modern science introduced from the West and ended on the eve of the 1911 revolution that replaced the Qing dynasty with a republic. Jesuit and Christian/Protestant missionaries worked with Chinese scholars such as Xu Guangqi, Xu Shou, Hua Hengfang and Li Shanlan to translate and publish Western works on science, mathematics and medicine. For missionaries, the introduction of science was merely a by-product of awakening Chinese with religion. But the Chinese who first became familiar with modern science also faced the challenge of embracing Western science while maintaining Chinese tradition. An example is the establishment of the Academy of Mathematics by the Kangxi emperor, which was modelled on the Paris Academy of Sciences but which housed only Chinese scholars (pp. 37-38).