Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

Book review:

"Chinese claims that they were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar inventions -- including explosives, printing, the compass, hydraulics, ceramics, suspension bridges and even toilet paper -- were long viewed with skepticism by Westerners who were smugly certain that these ancient people were incapable of such advanced innovations.

That was until Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham came along.

The story of how Needham confirmed the provenance of many of these inventions is told to great effect in The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by bestselling author Simon Winchester. The story of Needham himself is almost as good."