Somehow, Simon Winchester is always able to surprise us. With books like The Crack in the Edge of the World, The Professor and the Madman, and The Map That Changed the World, Winchester breathed new life into pedestrian history. In The Man Who Loved China, he uncovers the captivating story of a now neglected British scientist who forever changed our sense of world history. Joseph Needham (1900–95) was an eccentric biochemist and Sinologist who devoted much of his life to the writing of a multi-volume series entitled Science and Civilization in China. Winchester shows that this highly detailed tribute to ancient Chinese technological achievements was just the most lasting vestige of Needham's romance with Asian culture, which, unfortunately for him, developed during some of the darkest days of the Cold War. This is an unforgettable, enlivening read.