Synopses & Reviews
The Prisoner of Kathmandu is the story of Brian Hodgson, Britainandrsquo;s andldquo;father of Himalayan studies.andrdquo; Born in 1801, Hodgson joined the Bengal Civil Service as a privileged but sickly young man. Posted to Kathmandu as a junior political officer, he initially felt isolated and trapped as he struggled to keep peace between the fiercely independent mountain kingdom and the British East India Company. Ultimately, his efforts were rewarded with an enduring friendship between Nepal and the United Kingdom.
More than a biography of Hodgsonand#160;and a study of political relations between countries, this book is also an in-depth look at the western Orientalist movement driven by the European Enlightenment. Hodgson, who studied Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhism, soon took interest in Nepalandrsquo;s biodiversity and the regionandrsquo;s peoples and geography. He was also a key player in the struggle between those hoping to reshape India along British lines and those working to preserve local culture. Though overlooked in his own lifetime, Hodgson was later recognized as a major figure in Asian studies, a leader whose achievements have contributed to anthropology, ethnology, and natural history.
The extraordinary story of an extraordinary man, The Prisoner of Kathmandu sets the record straight while illuminating the history of Asian studies in the West.
Synopsis
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"--New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"--Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.
No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair.
He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovations--including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper--often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people.
After the war, Needham was determined to tell the world what he had discovered, and began writing his majestic Science and Civilisation in China, describing the country's long and astonishing history of invention and technology. By the time he died, he had produced, essentially single-handedly, seventeen immense volumes, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever.
Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great--related by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.
Synopsis
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham—the brilliant Cambridge scientist, freethinking intellectual, and practicing nudist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, once the world's most technologically advanced country.
About the Author
Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, Atlantic, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa. In 2006, Mr. Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He lives in western Massachusetts.