On Their Own Terms
On Their Own Terms

Author: Benjamin A. Elman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13: 0674036476

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In On Their Own Terms, Benjamin A. Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900). By 1600 Europe was ahead of Asia in producing basic machines, such as clocks, levers, and pulleys, that would be necessary for the mechanization of agriculture and industry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Elman shows, Europeans still sought from the Chinese their secrets of producing silk, fine textiles, and porcelain, as well as large-scale tea cultivation. Chinese literati borrowed in turn new algebraic notations of Hindu-Arabic origin, Tychonic cosmology, Euclidian geometry, and various computational advances. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, imperial reformers, early Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Chinese Communists have all prioritized science and technology. In this book, Elman gives a nuanced account of the ways in which native Chinese science evolved over four centuries, under the influence of both Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.

The History of Mathematical Tables
The History of Mathematical Tables

Author: Martin Campbell-Kelly

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-10-02

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 019154521X

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The oldest known mathematical table was found in the ancient Sumerian city of Shuruppag in southern Iraq. Since then, tables have been an important feature of mathematical activity; table making and printed tabular matter are important precursors to modern computing and information processing. This book contains a series of articles summarising the technical, institutional and intellectual history of mathematical tables from earliest times until the late twentieth century. It covers mathematical tables (the most important computing aid for several hundred years until the 1960s), data tables (eg. Census tables), professional tables (eg. insurance tables), and spreadsheets - the most recent tabular innovation. The book is presented in a scholarly yet accessible way, making appropriate use of text boxes and illustrations. Each chapter has a frontispiece featuring a table along with a small illustration of the source where the table was first displayed. Most chapters have sidebars telling a short "story" or history relating to the chapter. The aim of this edited volume is to capture the history of tables through eleven chapters written by subject specialists. The contributors describe the various information processing techniques and artefacts whose unifying concept is "the mathematical table".

On Diary
On Diary

Author: Philippe Lejeune

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2009-04-30

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0824833880

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On Diary is the second collection in English of the groundbreaking and profoundly influential work of one of the best-known and provocative theorists of autobiography and diary. Ranging from the diary’s historical origins to its pervasive presence on the Internet, from the spiritual journey of the sixteenth century to the diary of Anne Frank, and from the materials and methods of diary writing to the question of how diaries end, these essays display Philippe Lejeune’s expertise, eloquence, passion, and humor as a commentator on the functions, practices, and significance of keeping or reading a diary. Lejeune is a leading European critic and theorist of diary and autobiography. His landmark essay, "The Autobiographical Pact," has shaped life writing studies for more than thirty years, and his many books and essays have repeatedly opened up new vistas for scholarship. As Michael Riffaterre notes, "Lejeune’s work on autobiography is the most original, powerful, effective approach to a difficult subject. . . . His style is very personal, lively. It grabs the reader as scholarship rarely does. Lejeune’s erudition and methodology are impeccable." Two substantial introductory essays by Jeremy Popkin and Julie Rak place Lejeune’s work within its critical and theoretical traditions and comment on his central importance within the fields of life writing, literary genetic studies, and cultural studies.