The Man Who Loved China (36 page)

M
y first thanks must go to Mike McCabe of Salisbury, Connecticut, who in 1995 sold me my first book from the
Science and Civilisation in China
series. It was a secondhand copy of Volume IV, Part 3,
Civil Engineering and Nautics
; and the fact that his Lion's Head Books—a store now long defunct and still greatly missed—had the book in stock and priced very nearly affordably allowed me to snap it up on impulse, to read it outside in the store's parking lot, and to be rendered instantly enthralled by the sweep and scope of the mind behind it—the extraordinary mind of Joseph Needham.

The Needham Research Institute in Cambridge—where the ashes of Joseph, Dophi, and Gwei-djen, now commingled by time, lie beneath a tree in the gardens—is the present-day keeper of the flame, and I owe the very greatest of thanks to its director, Professor Christopher Cullen, who made me most welcome and allowed me full access to all those papers and artifacts that did not happen to be held in the immense collection of Needham documents across Grange Road in the Cambridge University Library. John Moffett, the NRI's librarian, was also tirelessly helpful; both he and Dr. Cullen read the first draft of the typescript and each made many valuable suggestions. I hope that what appears now meets with their approval; should any errors of fact or judgment either remain or have crept in, they are my responsibility alone.

I wish to record my thanks also to the institute's longtime administrator, Sue Bennett, as well as to archivist Joanne Meek; former director Ho Peng Yoke; and Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, scholar-in-residence and onetime chairman of the East Asian History of Science Trust, which generally oversees the institute. Lady Pamela Youde, who is the widow of the fondly remembered governor of Hong Kong, Sir Edward Youde, and who succeeded Sir Geoffrey as chairman of the trustees, was also extremely supportive.

At Caius College, Cambridge, I wish to record my thanks to the Master—and former British ambassador to China—Sir Christopher Hum; to Yao Ling, the college president; to Iain Macpherson, a fellow of Caius, a longtime friend of Needham's and executor of his estate; the distinguished fellows Mikulas Teich, Anthony Edwards, John Robson, and Jimmy Altham; the historian and archivist Christopher Brooke; and the college librarian Mark Statham. While I worked in Cambridge, the Master of Darwin College, Professor William Brown, placed rooms, as well as dining and research facilities, at my disposal, for which I am most grateful.

I should like to thank the unfailingly helpful staff of the Documents Room at the University Library, Cambridge; I was also ably assisted here by Helen Scales, a marine scientist and expert on seahorses, who took time out from her own work and very kindly sought out some much-needed Needham papers for me; and by my son Rupert, who helped as he so often does with my book projects, in this case by sedulously transcribing scores of pages from Needham's China diaries.

Staff at the China offices of the British Council were perhaps naturally predisposed to help a visitor who was researching the life and work of their most distinguished predecessor, who happened to be first-ever council officer based in the Middle Kingdom: So I was assisted generally by Michael O'Sullivan and Robin Rickard in the Beijing headquarters, and later and more especially, by David Foster and his delightful wife, Connie Lau, in Chongqing. The British consul-general at Chongqing, Tim Summers, together with his wife, Lucy Chan, proved the most hospitable of guides. Peter Bloor in the council's London offices also looked up some valuable archival material for me.

Professor Gregory Blue, who teaches world history at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, served as Joseph Needham's personal assistant in Cambridge through most of the 1980s; the advice and assistance he offered to me was quite invaluable, as was his hospitality when I traveled to Victoria.

H. T. Huang, who was Needham's secretary and long-suffering travel companion during most of his wartime years in China, offered much help and advice from his present home in Alexandria, Virginia. His own long life—with its interludes as escapee, refugee, distinguished scholar, and sci
ence policy maker—could well be the subject of a fascinating book. I greatly enjoyed meeting him in Washington and listening to his reminiscences.

Red Chan, who teaches at the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Warwick, accompanied me on all my journeys throughout China, acting most ably as translator and general fixer. I am greatly indebted to her.

I should also like to record my gratitude to the following, who had specific knowledge of aspects of Needham's life, or of China, and who were happy to share their knowledge or advice: Paul Aiello (Hong Kong), Robert Bickers (Bristol), Anne-Marie Brady (Canterbury, New Zealand), Francesca Bray (Edinburgh), Tom Buchanan (Oxford), Daniel Burton-Rose (Berkeley), Eric Danielson (Shanghai), Alan Donald (London), Ryan Dunch (Alberta), Gisele Edwards (London), Stephen Endicott (Toronto), Daniel Fertig (Hong Kong), Stephen Forge (Oundle), Edward Hammond (The Sunshine Project, Austin, Texas), May Holdsworth (London), Elisabeth Hsu (Oxford), John Israel (Kunming), Ron Knapp (New Paltz, NY), William Mackay (Hong Kong), Martin Merz (Hong Kong), George Ngu (Fuzhou), Peter Nolan (Cambridge), Michael Ravnitzky (New York), Priscilla Roberts (Hong Kong), Donald Saari (Irvine, California), Elinor Shaffer (London), Michael Sharp (Cambridge), Nathan Sivin (Philadelphia), Martha Smalley (Yale), Neil Smith (Dulwich School), Rob Stallard (SACU), Michael Sullivan (Oxford), Tony Sweeting (Hong Kong), Michael Szonyi (Harvard), David Tang (Hong Kong), Robert Temple (London), Dan Waters (Hong Kong), Jocelyn Wilk (Columbia U.), George Wilson (Bloomington, Indiana), Frances Wood (British Library), Lilian Wu (Hong Kong).

My agents—especially Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency in New York, with the able assistance of Georgia Cool and Sarah Ceglarski, and together with the help of Eugenie Furniss of the William Morris office in London, championed this book from the moment they first saw it, and did much to keep my spirits high through any trying times during the writing and editing process. Sophie Purdy kindly read the first rough draft of the manuscript and identified the more egregious of the
longueurs
, arguing forcefully for their excision or distillation.

In Henry Ferris I am fortunate to have one of the most robust and
scrupulous editors in New York, and he managed, with just the right mix of courtesy and firmness, the delicate business of trimming and adjusting the manuscript that I first submitted. His enduring assistant, associate editor Peter Hubbard, helped also with the task of acquiring illustrations and maps: between the two of them the text was whipped into something infinitely more fit for publication than when it first arrived. Mary Mount also added the very considerable benefit of her perspective from London, and made countless suggestions for improving the text, almost all of which I was eventually very content to accept. The book drew great benefit from the work that these three performed upon it; my gratitude to them is boundless.

SW