Science in China, 1600-1900

Book excerpt: Distinguished historian Benjamin A Elman's collective volume on the history of Science in imperial China, brings together over 30 years of historical literature on the subject. With updates to the literature and new material including transcripts of podcasts and translated interview articles, Essays on Science in China takes the reader on a journey starting in the early 17th Century with the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in China, and ending with the Protestant missions in the 19th Century. These two milestone encounters brought Western sciences to local Chinese scholars with great success in shaping modern Chinese science. Elman studies the interaction between Western and Chinese sciences through philological research and evidence, and treats the two encounters not as separate events but as a continuum of creative exchange of scientific knowledge and discourse.