Classical Historiography for Chinese History

• Ancient China's Technology and Science, compiled by the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1983.
• Anderson, E. N. The Food of China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
• Bodde, Derk. Chinese Thought, Society, and Science. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991.
• Bray, Francesca. Technology and Power: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: UC Press, 1997.
• Carter, Thomas. The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward. N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1925, reprint, 1931.
• Elman, Benjamin. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
• Fan, Fa-ti. British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
• The History of Cartography: Volume 2, Book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East And Southeast Asian Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• Feng, Jiren. "Bracketing Likened to Flowers, Branches and Foliage: Architectural Metaphors and Conceptualization in Tenth to Twelfth-Century China as Reflected in the Yingzao Fashi." T'oung Pao Volume 93 Numbers 4-5 2007: 369-432.
• Ho, Peng Yoke. Li, Qi, and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilization in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985.
• ---, trans. The Astronomical Chapters of the Chin Shu. Paris: Mouton, 1966.
• Hommel, Rudolf P. China at work; an illustrated record of the primitive industries of China's masses, whose life is toil, and thus an account of Chinese civilization. New York, Pub. for the Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.: John Day Company, 1937. Description: x pp., 1 l., 366 pp. illus. 28 cm. Subjects: Tools; Industries--China.
• Hashimoto, Keizo, et al, eds. East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond. Osaka: Kansai University Press, 1995.
• Li, Guohao, et al., eds. Explorations in the History of Science and Technology in China. Shanghai: Chinese Classics Publishing House, 1982.
• Lloyd, Geoffrey, and Nathan Sivin. The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
• Nakayama, Shigeru. A History of Japanese Astronomy: Chinese Background and Western Impact. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969.
• Trombert, ?ric. "The Karez Concept in Ancient Chinese Sources Myth or Reality?" T'oung Pao Volume 94 Numbers 1-3 2008: 115-150.
• Wagner, Donald. The Traditional Chinese Iron Industry and Its Modern Fate. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, and London: Curzon Press, 1997.
• Wright, David. Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840-1900. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001. 

• Altwein, Erich F. W., & Kenneth Robinson. A Critical Study of Chu Tsai-yu's Contribution to the Theory of Equal Temperament in Chinese Music. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980.
• Amiot, Joseph Marie, & Pierre Joseph Roussier. Memoire sur la musique des Chinois. Geneve: Minkoff Reprint, 1973.
• Cullen, Christopher, tr. Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The Zhou pi suan jing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Engelfriet, Peter. Euclid in China: The Genesis of the First Translation of Euclid's Elements Books I-VI (Jihe yuanben; Beijing 1667) and its Reception up to 1723. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998.
• Hart, Roger, "Reconstructing Early Developments of Determinants in China: Evidence from the Nine Chapters of Mathematical Methods (Jiu zhang suan shu ? ? ? ?) and Later Commentaries." The September 2005 abstract is as follows:
  • Abstract: In this article Hart argues that the early history of the development of determinants should be extended back--1500 years earlier than previously recognized--to the Nine Chapters of Mathematical Methods (c. 150 B . C . E . ). Hart focuses on problem 13 from chapter 8 of the Nine Chapters, together with solutions preserved in later commentaries. First, he shows that among these solutions is found the earliest extant record of a calculation of a determinant (c. 1025 C.E.), and the earliest extant record of a determinantal solution (1661 C.E.). Hart then presents mathematical and textual evidence to reconstruct determinantal solutions to problems in the Nine Chapters and argues that these were known at the time of its compilation.
• ---, "Proof, Propaganda, and Patronage: A Cultural History of the Dissemination of Western Studies in Seventeenth-Century China." UCLA Ph.D. dissertation in History, 1996. Argues that the "failure narrative" of traditional Chinese natural studies was first argued by Jesuits and their literati followers, with little understanding of pre-1600 natural studies in Sung-Yuan-Ming China.
• Jami, Catherine, Les Methodes Rapides pour la Trigonometrie et le Rapport Precis du Cercle (1774). Paris: College de France, 1990.
• Lam, Joseph S., State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China. Albany: SUNY, 1998.
• Li, Yan, & Du Shiran. Chinese Mathematics: A Concise History. Translated by John Crossley & Anthony Lun. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
• Libbrecht, Ulrich. Chinese Mathematics in the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973.
• Martzloff, Jean-Claude. Recherches sur l'oeuvre mathematique de Mei Wending, 1633-1721. Paris: College de France, Institut des hautes etudes chinoises, 1981.
• ---. A History of Chinese Mathematics. Translated by Stephen S. Wilson. New York: Springer verlag, 1997. French edition: Paris, Messon, 1987.
• Mikami, Yoshio. The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan. New York: Chelsea, 1974.
• Swetz, Frank J., & Ang Tian Se. "A Brief Chronological and Bibliographic Guide to the History of Chinese Mathematics."Historia Mathematica 11 (1984): 39-56.
• Swetz, Frank. The Sea Island Mathematical Manual: Surveying and Mathematics in Ancient China. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1992.
• Zou, D. "Shuihudi Bamboo Strips of the Qin Dynasty and Mathematics in Pre-Qin Period." Frontiers of History in China v. 2 no. 4 (October 2007): 632-54.

• Andrews, Bridie J. "The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine." Cambridge University Ph.D. dissertation in History and Philosophy of Science, 1996.
• Barnes, Linda L. Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, China Healing and the West to 1848, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Harvard University Press, 2005.
• Benedict, Carol. Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China. Stanford University Press, 1996.
• Chang, Che-chia. "The Therapeutic Tug of War. The Imperial Physician-Patient Relationship in the Era of Empress Dowager Cixi (1874-1908)." University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 1998. Uses the Qing palace medical archives and other neglected sources in the first substantial study of doctor-patient relations in imperial China. An excellent study of the encounter of official and private medical subcultures. Offers the first solid solutions to enigmas in the medical histories and deaths of the T'ung-chih and Kuang-hsu emperors and the empress dowager Tz'i-hsi (Cixi).
• Chang, Chia-feng. "Aspects of Smallpox and its Significance in Chinese History." London University, School of Oriental and African Studies Ph.D. dissertation, 1996.
• Chao, Yuan-ling. "Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China: A Study of Physicians in Suzhou." UCLA Ph.D. dissertation in History, 1995.
• Deshpande, Vijaya. "Ophthalmic Surgery: A Chapter in the History of Sino-Indian Medical Contacts." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 63 No. 3 2000: 370-388.
• Essential Subtleties on the Silver Sea. The Yin-hai jing-wei: A Chinese Classic on Ophthamology. Translated and annotated by Jurgen Kovacs & Paul Unschuld. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Translation of 15th-century original.
• Furth, Charlotte. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History, 960-1665. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
• Goldschmidt, Asaf. "Epidemics and Medicine during the Northern Song Dynasty: The Revival of Cold Damage Disorders (Shanghan)." T'oung Pao Volume 93 Numbers 1-3 2007: 53-109.
• Grant, Joanna. Chinese Physician: Wang Ji and the "Stone Mountain Medical Case Histories." London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
• Grant, Joanna. "Wang Ji's Shishan yi'an: Aspects of Gender and Culture in Ming Dynasty Medical Case Histories." London University, School of Oriental and African Studies Ph.D. dissertation in History, 1997.
• Kuriyama, Shigegisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York: Zone Books, 1999.
• Li, Guei-djen, & Joseph Needham. Celestial Lancelets: A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
• Hanson, Marta. "Inventing a Tradition in Chinese Medicine. From Universal to Local Medical Knowledge in South China, the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century." University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation in History and Sociology of Science, 1997. Largely focusses on Su-chou. Shows that the Warm Factors (wen ping ? ? ) School, which claims origins in 17-18th century doctrines, was invented in 19th century as part of a general trend in the Yangtzu delta's assertion of local identity. Builds up a detailed picture of social networks of support for medical change. Particularly innovative in its use of geographic themes in medical history.
• Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Transcripts. New York: Kegan Paul International, 1998.
• Ling Shu or the Spiritual Pivot. Wu, Jing-nuan, trans. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. This canon of acupuncture is the second part of The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine.
• Leslie, Charles, & Allan Young, eds. Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
• Liu, Yanchi, ed. The Essential Book of Traditional Chinese Medicine. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
• Lo, Vivienne. "Spirit of Stone: Technical Considerations in the Treatment of the Jade Body." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 65 No. 1 2002: 99-128.
• Macpherson, Kerrie L. A Wilderness of Marshes: The Origins of Public Health in Shanghai, 1843-1893. Oxford East Asian Historical Monographs, 1987.
• Mitchell, Craig, Ye, Feng, and Wiseman, Nigel (ed. and trans.). Shang Han Lun: On Cold Damage, Translation and Commentaries. Brookline, Mass.: Paradigm Publications, 1999.
• Porkert, Manfred. The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978.
• Scheid, Volker. "Plurality and Synthesis in Contemporary Chinese Medicine." University of Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation in Social Anthropology, 1997. A field study (observed in 1994) of practitioners and patients by an an ethnographer. Gives many examples of medical reasoning and practice as eclectic, heterogeneous, and responsive to complex historically specific influences. Well informed about the history of traditional medicine since 1950.
• Schmidt, F.R.A. "The Textual History of the Materia Medica in the Han Period: A System-Theoretical Reconsideration."T'oung-pao Volume 92 Numbers 4-5 2006: 293-324.
• Sivin, Nathan. Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Monograph in the History of Science, 1968.
• ---, & Shigeru Nakayama, eds. Chinese Science. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973.
• ---. Cosmos and Computation in Early Chinese Mathematical Astronomy. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969.
• ---. Medicine, Philosophy, and Religion in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Variorium, 1995.
• ---, ed. Science and Technology in East Asia. N.Y.: Science History Publication, 1977.
• ---. Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Variorium, 1995.
• ---. Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1987.
• Strickmann, Michel (Faure, Bernard ed.). Chinese Magical Medicine. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002.
• Tessenow, Hermann, and Paul U. Unschuld. A Dictionary of the Huang Di nei jing su wen. (Huang Di nei jing su wenProject.). Includes searchable CD-ROM. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008.
• Unschuld, Paul.Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
• ---. Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
• ---. Medical Ethics in Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
• Veith, Ilza, trans. The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.
• Ware, James, trans. Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei Pien of Ko Hung. N.Y.: Dover, 1966.
• Wu, Yi-li. "Transmitted Secrets: The Doctors of the Lower Yangzi Region and Popular Gynecology in Late Imperial China." Yale University Ph.D. dissertation in History, 1998. A study of the interpenetration of elite and popular writing on women's disorders in the Qing dynasty, with attention to survivals up to the present day. A chapter closely and fruitfully analyzes the notion of specialization in late classical medicine. Also concerned with the role of hereditary practitioners. Particularly valuable are its studies of the popular traditions centered on the Bamboo Grove Temple (Zhu lin si ? ? ? ), Shao-hsing prefecture, as well as the practice of a hereditary family of that region.
• Yu, Gengzhe et al. "The Progression of Moxibustion Therapy in Tang and Song Dynasty Folk Medicine: An Analysis on the Background of Technology Choice." Frontiers of History in China v. 2 no. 3 (July 2007): 320-44.
• Zhang, Zhongjing. Treatise on Febrile Diseases Caused By Cold. Translated by Luo Xiwen et al. Beijing: New World Press, 1986.
• Zhang, Zhongmin et al. "Books of Physiology and Hygiene Published in Late Qing Dynasty and their Readers." Frontiers of History in China v. 4 no. 4 (December 2009): 604-31.

Needham, Joseph, et al., Science and Civilization in China. Multi-vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1954-.

• Vol. I: Introductory Orientations;
• Vol. II: History of Scientific Thought;
• Vol. III: Mathematics and the Science of the Heavens and the Earth; Vol. IV: Physics and Physical Technology;
• Vol. V: Chemistry and Chemical Technology;
• Vol VI: Biology and Biological Technology, etc.
• See the recent issue of Vol. VI:3 (1996), by Christian Daniels & Nicholas Menzies: Agro-Industries & Forestry andAgro-Industries: Sugarcane Technology.
• See also recent issues on Agriculture (Francesca Bray), Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges (Joseph Needham, RobinYates, with the collaboration of Krzysztof Gawlikowski, Edward McEwen and Wang Ling), Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic (Joseph Needham, with the collaboration of Ho Ping-Yu [Ho Peng-Yoke], Lu Gwei-djen and Wang Ling), Textile Technology: Spinning and Reeling (Dieter Kuhn 1986), and Mining (Peter Golas).
  • Vol. 5 Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part 13: Mining, by Peter Golas. The fifth volume covers the subjects of chemistry and chemical technology. The thirteenth part of the volume, is the first history of Chinese mining to appear in a Western language. Spanning from the Neolithic period to the present day, it deals with the full range of Chinese mining from copper to mercury, arsenic to coal. The author explores not only the written sources but also the archaeological remains, and observes the traditional techniques still in use. The interrelationship between Chinese mining and its social, economic and political implications is examined. Through these discoveries,the author concludes that these factors were probably more important in determining how mining was carried out than the technological progress itself.

    Contents: Contents/ List of illustrations/ List of maps/ List of Tables/ List of abbreviations/ Author's note/ 1.Introduction/ 2.An overview of mining in China/ 3.Sources/ 4.Deposits/ 5.The products of Chinese mining/ 6.Prospecting and exploration/ 7.Placer mining and surface mining/ 8.Underground mining/ 9.Ore dressing/ 10.The copper precipitation process/ 11.Labour, capital and mining technology/ 12.The state and mining technology/ 13.Conclusions/ 14.Bibliographies/ 15.General index/ 15.Table of Chineses dynasties/ 16.Romanization convertion tables.

  • Vol. 7 The Social Background. Part 1: Language and Logic in Traditional China by Christoph Harbsmeier, Foreword by Joseph Needham. Volume 7 Part 1 is the first book in the final volume of this unique resource. Christoph Harbsmeier discusses the basic features of the classical Chinese language that made it a suitable medium for science in ancient China, discussing in detail a wide range of abstract concepts that are crucial for the development of scientific discourse. There is special emphasis on the conceptual history of logical terminology in ancient China, and on traditional Chinese views on their own language. Finally the book provides an overview of the development of logical reflection in ancient China, first in terms of the forms of arguments that were deployed in ancient Chinese texts, and then in terms of ancient Chinese theoretical concerns with logical matters.

    Contents: Foreword, J. Needham/ Preface/ SECTION 49: LANGUAGE AND LOGIC IN TRADITIONAL CHINA/ A: METHOD: 1. Methodological remarks/ 2. The history of the study of classical Chinese language and logic in the West/ B: TYPOLOGY: 1. The place of Chinese among East Asian languages/ 2. Spoken Chinese and the semiotics of Chinese characters/ 3. Traditional Chinese comments on language/ 4. The art of definition/ 5. Dictionaries in traditional China/ 6. The art of grammar in traditional China/ 7. The art of literacy in traditional China/ C: LOGIC: 1. Negation and the law of double negation in classical Chinese/ 2. Logical sentence connectives/ 3. Logical quantifiers/ 4. Lexical and grammatical categories/ 5. Logical and grammatical explicitness/ 6. Logical and grammatical complexity in classical Chinese/ D: SENTENCES: 1. Punctuation and the concept of a sentence/ 2. The concept of meaning/ 3. The concept of truth/ 4. The concept of necessity/ 5. The concept of contradiction/ 6. The concept of a class/ 7. Abstraction and the concept of a property/ 8. The concept of subsumption/ 9. The concepts of knowledge and belief/ E: RATIONALITY: 1. Argumentation and rationality in early China/ 2. Some forms of argument in ancient China/ F: HUI SHIH: 1. Teng Hsi and Hui Shih/ 2. Kungsun Lung and the White Horse dialogue/ Appendix to 2. The mass noun hypothesis and the part-whole analysis of the White Horse dialogue/ 3. Hsun Tzu's Logic/ 4. Later Mohist logic/ 5. Chinese reactions to ancient Chinese disputation and logic/ 6. Logical thought in the 3rd century/ G: BUDDHIST LOGIC: 1. History of Buddhist logic/ 2. The system of Buddhist logic/ 3. The argument for consciousness only/ 4. The translation of logic from Sanskrit to Chinese/ 5. Contrasts between Yin Ming and Aristotelian logic/ CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS/ Bibliography/ Index.

See also:

• The Shorter Science and Civilization in China, abridged by Colin A. Ronan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978-95, 5 vols. to date;

• See especially Nicolas Standaert, ed. Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume One: 635-1800. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001. Pp. 689-878 present summaries and bibliographies of most fields of science and technology that the Jesuits were involved with in Ming and Qing China.
• See also R. G. Tiedemann, Reference Guide to Christian Missionary Societies in China: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century. New York: M.E. Sharpe Cloth ISBN: 978-0-7656-1808-5 USD: $$128.95. Information: 360pp. Index. Est. Publication Date: December 2007. The latter guide will facilitate scholarly research concerning the history of Christianity in China as well as the wider Sino-Western cultural encounter. It will assist scholars in their search for material on the anthropological, educational, medical, scientific, social, political, and religious dimensions of the missionary presence in China prior to 1950. The guide contains nearly five hundred entries identifying both Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary sending agencies and related religious congregations. Each entry includes the organization's name in English, followed by its Chinese name, country of origin, and denominational affiliation. Special attention has been paid to identifying the many small, lesser-known groups that arrived in China during the early decades of the twentieth century. In addition, a special category of the as yet little-studied indigenous communities of Chinese women has also been included. Multiple indexes enhance the guide's accessibility.
• Adas, Michael, Machines as a Measure of Man: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Compares and contrasts European views of China, India, and Africa before and after the industrial revolution in terms of European perceptions of their prowess in the natural sciences and technology.
• Barrett, T. H. "Woodblock Dyeing and Printing Technology in China, c. 700 A.D.: The Innovations of Ms. Liu, and Other Evidence." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 64 No. 2 2001: 240-247.
• Cho, Gene. Lu-Lu: A Study of Its Historical, Acoustical and Symbolic Signification. Taipei: Caves Books, 1989.
• DeWoskin, Kenneth. A Song For One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1982.
• Elman, Benjamin. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
• Gauler, Gabriele, trans. Das Meng-ch'i pi-t'an des Shen Kua. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wurzburg, 1987. Contains the German translation of Shen's "Foreward" and first chapter.
• Golvers, Noel. Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven: The Compostion of the Astronomical Corpus and its Diffusion and Reception in the European Republic of Letters. Leuven:University Press, 2003.
• Hashimoto, Keizo. Hsu Kuang-ch'i and Astronomical Reform. Osaka: Kansai University Press, 1988.
• Huff, Toby. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Mungello, David. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.
• Pian, Rulan Chao. Song Dynasty Musical Sources and Their Interpretation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
• Reardon-Anderson, James. The Study of Change: Chemistry in China, 1840-1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Sivin, Nathan, "Copernicus in China." In Nathan Sivin. Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Variorium, 1995, IV:1-53. Contends that contrary to the "accommodation" view the Jesuits deliberately withheld information concerning heliocentrism from Ming and Qing literati.
• Sterckx, Roel. "Transforming the Beasts: Animals and Music in Early China." T'oung Pao Volume 86 Numbers 1-3 2000: 1-46.
• von Falkenhausen, Lothar. Suspended Music: Chime Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: UC Press, 1993.
• Wang, Xiaochao, Christianity and Imperial Culture: Chinese Christian Apologetics in the Seventeenth Century and their Latin Patristic Equivalent. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998.
• Zhang, Qiong. "Cultural Accommodation or Intellectual Colonization? A Reinterpretation of the Jesuit Approach to Confucianism During the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries." Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation in History of Science, 1996. Strongly challenges the "accommodation" view of Jesuit strategies in the late-Ming and early-Qing periods by a careful reading of Jesuit translations of Christian doctrines into classical Chinese in the 17th century.