Science and Civilisation in China, Part 2, AgricultureThis second part of the sixth volume of Joseph Needham's great enterprise is the first to be written by a collaborator. Francesca Bray, working closely with Dr Needham, has produced the most comprehensive study of Chinese agriculture to be published in the West. From a huge mass of source material, often confusing and obscure, and from first-hand study in China, she brings order and illumination to a crucial area of Chinese technological development. The main body of the book is an account of the technological history of agriculture, with major sections devoted to field systems, implements and techniques (sowing, harvesting, storing) and crop systems (what has grown and where and how crops rotated). The concluding section contrasts Europe's Agricultural Revolution with agrarian change in North China in the Han and with the 'Green Revolution' in South China in the Sung. In the theoretical analysis which concludes this section we find a vital contribution to the elucidation of the main question posed by Dr Needham's work: why did the Scientific Revolution which transformed the world take place in Europe and not in China? |
Contents
41 | 1 |
2 Agricultural regions p | 9 |
3 Origins of Chinese agriculture p | 27 |
b Sources p | 47 |
ii Wang Chens Nung Shu or Agricultural Treatise p | 59 |
3 Statecommissioned compilations p | 70 |
5 Supplementary sources p | 76 |
Agricultural changes and societystagnation or revolu | 553 |
BIBLIOGRAPHIES | 617 |
| 674 | |
Table of Chinese Dynasties | 715 |
Common terms and phrases
18th century Amano Anon barley century cereals Cheng Chhüan Shu Chhen Chhi Min Yao Chhing Chia Chinese agricultural Chou Chung CMYS crops cultivation culture domesticated drill dynasty earliest early economic Europe European Fan Sheng-Chih farmers farming fertilisers fields grain granaries grown Han dynasty harrow harvest Hoabinhian hsien Hsü Huai implements irrigation Keng Chih Thu labour land legumes Leser maize manure millet Ming modern mould-board neolithic North China Northern Nung Cheng Chhüan Nung Shu panicum peasants Peking Pen Tshao period plants plough production quoted regions rice seed seed-drill setaria Shang Shen Shensi Shih sickle soil South Southeast Asia southern sowing sown spade SSTK Sung Szechwan techniques terraces Thang thien threshing TKKW transplanting varieties vegetables Wade-Giles Wang Chen WCNS weeds wheat wheat and barley wooden Yangtze Yangtze Delta Yao Shu yields Yuan Yüeh Yunnan
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