This tome is a a recipe for “Wow” moments . The author Robert Temple describes the history of numerous inventions to highlight the ingenuity of Chinese civilisation. Some of these are well known, like paper and the compass. But most of them come as a surprise.
Until about 2000 years ago, China was far ahead of the rest of the world in most types of technology. In some respects, such as agricultural tools and steel smelting, China was 2000 years ahead of Europe. History and Europe was like a marginal third world society while China was at the centre of things.
Its often suggested in the West, that so-called Orientals are copiers rather than innovators, then someone will mention gunpowder, paper or the printing press, three major inventions of the Chinese, and the Western naysayers will assert that although the Chinese may have invented a few things, they didn’t follow this with their inventions as did inventors and entrepreneurs in Europe and America.
Robert Temple is an English professor with an arm full of degrees, memberships and fellowships to his credit. Cleverly, the Chinese did not initially use paper made from compressed hemp, to write on, but for wrapping, nose- blowing and personal hygiene. They also used paper for clothing, even employing a thickened version for military armour..
In the first-centuryAD, the Chinese were building suspension bridges– in the 9th century, they famously invented gunpowder, using it to ignite rockets, and by the 10th century they had advanced its use to set off a fuse for a nasty flame-thrower that sprayed enemies with burning gasoline. They fashioned bombs, mines and guns, even repeating guns, centuries before those notions of warfare occurred to Americans or Europeans.
The Chinese were also years ahead in the development of medicines. Sometimes their diagnostic techniques were astonishingly accurate, though some were based on superstition. They identified symptoms of diabetes mellitus correctly associating it with sugar in the urine..This was as early as 655 or before . They used thyroid extracts to treat goitre and reputedly possessed the secret of smallpox inoculation by around the year 1000 AD.
Their contribution to mathematics includes negative number decimal fractions, algebra and geometry, as well as “Pascals triangle”– obviously credited to a European, but demonstrated, in China as early as 1303 AD by Chu Shih-Chieh. They had mastered the art for manufacturing phosphorescent paint 700 years before its first appearance in the West.
This book impressed with its wealth of information. It contains a handy timeline demonstrating the approximate lag of years between each Chinese invention and its Western counterpart. There are colour photos throughout along with the older black and white ones and relevant drawings.
These days, the world would do well to understand the Chinese as thoroughly as possible; this book is a great starting point to understand that before “we” discovered the Orient, it was doing fine without us and our primitive technologies. The Chinese looms was used to produce intricately figured fabrics, notably the multi-coloured brocaded silks with floral and coloured motifs, known as Yunjini. Perhaps more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries upon which the modern world rests come from China.
Without the importation of nautical and navigational improvements such as ship’s rudders, the compass and multiple masts, let alone sail- technology, without which the great European voyages of discovery could never have been undertaken. Columbus would not have sailed to America and Europe and could never have established Colonial Empires. Without the importation from China of the stirrup, to enable them to stay on horseback, knights would never have ridden in their shining armour, to aid damsels in distress; there would have been no Age of Chivalry.
Without the importation of paper and printing, Europe would have been reduced to copying books by hand, limiting literacy. Johann Gutenberg did not invent moving type. It was invented in China. William Harvey did not discover the circulation of the blood in the body. It was discovered in China. Issac Newton was not the first to discover his First Law of Motion. It was discovered in China.
The growing of crops in rows, brought about the Industrial Revolution, the ideas originated in, you guessed it, China. Intensive hoeing of weeds, the “modern” seed drill and iron plow, the moldboard to turn the ploughed soil and efficient harnesses revolutionised Western agricultural methodology. Even though ancient Italy could produce plenty of grain, it could not be transported overland satisfactorily for the lack of harnesses. Cast iron technology was known in China centuries before the West used it. The gyroscope and compass revolutionised navigation snd shipping.
Lastly, one of the inventions of the greatest utility was the square-pallet chain pump, an endless circularity chain-bearing square pallets for hauling water, earth or sand. It could haul enormous quantities of water from lower to higher levels, with human paddle power. They were the original conveyer belts.
This book was written a long time ago, it’s detailed treasures are an amazing and rewarding read.
Robert Temple ‘The Genius of China : 3000 Years of Scientific Discovery, and Invention.’ Published by Simon and Schuster, 1986
