Time, Science, and Society in China and the West: The Study of Time V ed. by J. T. Fraser, et al

Abstract

946 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE only 3—4 inches in diameter—hence trivial compared to the huge pro­ jectiles recovered in late medieval European sites. The tide was turning. Saltpeter was the key to it all, and yet it is treated almost incidentally in this volume. In part this is because, as Needham indicates, he has discussed it in volume 5, parts 2 and 4. But his discussion there focuses on the differentiation of saltpeter from other salts, and the reader is further referred to section 30 in volume 5, part 1. That volume, how­ ever, is entirely devoted to paper and printing. The answer seems to lie in the indication on p. 1 that it is section 30 (cont.). And indeed, we are informed in an opening author’s note that there will be two addi­ tional volumes on military technology, volume 5, part 6 and part 8! So we have apparently not had Needham’s final word on saltpeter. But as matters stand, it seems to me that the treatment of saltpeter is wanting, and particularly the question of the scale of its produc­ tion—Needham finds no detailed account of saltpeter production in China before about 1630, in the celebrated Thien Kung Khai Wu (a work available in English). On this, as in other matters touched on above, he is open to chal­ lenge, and indeed he frequently invites correction. But until the ap­ pearance of Science and Civilisation, knowledge of the history of this aspect of Chinese culture was too rudimentary to invite correction. Anyone who has followed its emergence over the years will feel that to complain is like asking the author what he has done for us “lately.” R. P. Multhauf Dr. Multhauf is historian emeritus at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Time, Science, and Society in China and the West: The Study of Time V. Edited by J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F. C. Haber. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986. Pp. xvii + 262; figures, notes, references. $35.00. This volume is a collection of the papers presented at the 1983 meeting of the International Society for the Study of Time. Like all such collections, it contains essays of varying quality and sophistica­ tion; yet, unlike the products of many other symposia, Time, Science, and Society in China and the West is unified both by its theme—the exploration, in virtually all realms of creativity, of the meaning of temporality—and by the energy and knowledge ofJ. T. Fraser, found­ er of the society. From St. Augustine’s observation that the “now” remains forever imperceptible, to contemporary explorations of time’s direction and asymmetry, descriptions of time have provided the harmony within which the melodies of art, philosophy, music, and science have been TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 947 composed. Essays by Conrad Dale Johnson, Nathaniel Lawrence, and J. T. Fraser sketch out some of this history. Francis C. Haber focuses on the group of Baconians allied with Samuel Hartlib in a description of 17th-century hopes for a productive, and morally edifying, tech­ nology. Samuel L. Macey describes “Literary Images of Progress” a bit too briefly and makes the extraordinary claim that “Western tech­ nology may have been founded in part on a rape of labor and re­ sources, but it has long since passed beyond that state”—as if exploitation and environmental destruction had suddenly ceased (p. 101). Anindita Niyogi Balslev offers a summary of temporal theory in Indian philosophy, including some important remarks on the na­ ture of cyclic time in the Puranas and epics. Fine essays by Ruth M. Stone and Jonathan D. Kramer on time in African and Western music round out this group of essays on time in the “non-Chinese world.” For me, the most important contribution made by the book is its discussion of temporal issues in Chinese culture—including studies of temporal theory in Chinese science, technology, medicine, philos­ ophy, and poetry. Though the quality varies, these nine essays, taken in their entirety, constitute a reasonable introduction to the subject of temporal theory and Chinese thought. Other readers may feel, as I did, that too much space (and, yes...