This fascinating book presents the unusual career of a scientist of Chinese Malaysian origin, Ho Peng Yoke, who became a humanist and rendered his services to both Eastern and Western intellectual worlds. It describes how Ho adapted to working under changing social and academic environments in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and England. His activities also covered East Asia, Europe and North America. Ho Peng Yoke worked in collaboration with Joseph Needham of Cambridge over different periods spanning half a century in the monumental series Science and Civilization in China. Ho subsequently succeeded Needham as Director of the Needham Research Institute, where he held the post for 12 years. In the introduction to the final volume of that series, the Oxford scholar Mark Elvin remarked that Ho “had long piloted the ship through difficult times.” This book tells the story and more.

Foreword

1 Early Years and Parentage

2 Career as a Physicist

3 Professor of Chinese at Kuala Lumpur

4 A New Australian University

5 The University of Hong Kong

6 Return to Griffith University

7 The Needham Research Institute

Index