Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology. Pt. 3, Agro-Industries and Forestry by Christian Daniels and Nicholas K. Menzies

Abstract

162 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE In the last analysis, this fine book will prove invaluable to anyone who studies the history of technology from an international perspec­ tive. Gail A. Cooper Dr. Cooper teaches at Lehigh University. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technol­ ogy. Pt. 3, Agro-Industries and Forestry. By Christian Daniels and Nicholas K. Menzies, with a foreword byJoseph Needham. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xxvii+740; illustra­ tions, maps, figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $150.00 (hardcover). This volume is the latest of seventeen books in the series edited byjoseph Needham, who died in March 1995 while this volume was in press. We are all indebted to him for opening an entire field of studies on Chinese contributions in science and technology. This volume consists of two independent sections, one on sugar­ cane technology by Christian Daniels and another on forestry by Nicholas K. Menzies. Both are exhaustive scholarly studies on their respective subjects. The first, which takes up more than two-thirds of this volume, is focused upon the sugar industry, although the author also includes very brief discussions on such other agroindustries as oil, paper, in­ digo, lacquer, and tea, each of which might merit fuller treatment as important industrial products based on agriculture. Daniels draws information from a wide range of sources, including agricultural and technological treatises, local gazettes, and reports written by visitors/travelers who witnessed sugar production in various coun­ tries. He investigates methods and techniques of sugar production from both the agricultural dimension ofgrowing sugar cane and the industrial dimension of sugar manufacture. He argues convincingly for the Indian origin ofsugar-making, its introduction to China, and further spread from China to Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, and Japan. Chinese who learned sugar manufacture from Indians in turn developed their own techniques. For instance, probably from their experience of oil extraction and cotton-grain, Chinese developed double-roller milling and edge-runner devices that were later adopted by other people. Daniels rightly pays attention to socioeconomic conditions in the Chinese agrarian system, such as small-scale intensive farming and a marketing network. He notes that there were no large-scale sugar industries based on slavery. He suggests that Chinese relied upon managerial expertise rather than technological solutions to make sugar manufacture profitable. Regarding the diversion of Chinese TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 163 technology to the Asian-Pacific region the author credits Chinese traders and overseas emigrants as transmitters of such knowledge. After reading Daniels’s analysis of sugar industries in Chinese his­ tory, this reviewer still feels somewhat puzzled on one score: why did not rum-making, which is extremely profitable (as shown in the West Indies), ever appear in China? Nicholas Menzies derived his information on forestry from Chi­ nese literary sources on agriculture and arboriculture, and from lo­ cal gazetteers. His main argument is that the Chinese had a rather consistent approach to regulating the use of forest resources that fit the Chinese concept of ecological equilibrium. The author charts Chinese ways and means of harvesting, transporting, and measuring wood, as well as Chinese cosmology, which was closely related to their vision of the ecosystem. A serious deforestation problem occurred in the late 12th century as demand for iron rose and with it demand for charcoal. Menzies compares deforestation in China with the same phenomenon in Eu­ rope, suggesting that these events should be considered in ecologi­ cal context, as well as in socioeconomic and political institutional contexts. I agree with Menzies on this point in principle. However, demographic change in China, which has had a constant increase in population since the Ming-Ch’ing period, should be regarded as a condition of great pertinence to deforestation in China. Cho-yun Hsu Dr. Hsu is University Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. One of his several books is Han Agricultures (Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1980). L ’Automobile autrefois: Une difficile adoption. By Pierre-Lucien Pouzet. Lyons: Horvath, 1996. Pp. 143; illustrations. FF 130. This short book is a collection of anecdotes, mostly from France, illustrating public hostility to automobiles in the years up to 1914. The author has...