Details for this torrent 


Simon Winchester - The Man Who Loved China
Type:
Audio > Audio books
Files:
11
Size:
310.6 MB

Spoken language(s):
English
Quality:
+0 / -0 (0)

Uploaded:
Aug 3, 2008
By:
deandominic



General Information
===================
 Title............: The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries 
                    of the Middle Kingdom
 Author...........: Simon Winchester          
 Read By..........: Simon Winchester          
 Genre............: Biography           
 Publisher........: Harper Audio; Unabridged edition (2008)

Original Media Information
==========================
 Media............: 8 CDs  
 Condition........: Very Good
 
File Information
================
 Number of MP3s...: 8
 Total Duration...: 9 hours 12 minutes
 Total MP3 Size...: 310 MB
 Ripped by........: deandominic             
 Ripper...........: Exact Audio Copy                                 
 Encoder..........: LAME 3.98          
 Encoder Settings.: ABR 80 kbit/s 44100 Hz Mono          
 ID3 Tags.........: v1.1, v2.3 (includes embedded album art)

Book Description
================
 
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Loved-China-Fantastic/dp/0060884592/ref=ed_oe_h
 
http://www.simonwinchester.com/books/manwho_description.html

In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa 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.

Comments

Hi: just wanted to say thanks for the great uploads.
thanks!!!
You are both very welcomed.
I read the book on hardcover. it is just an OK book. This man played politics, but the book only described the man a little.

I will be interested if anyone can find a synopsis of Needman's 25 volume of Ciniese invention.

The author, Simon Winchser never addressed Needman's question... Why not develop further/