Historians of science and Sinologists have long needed a unified narrative to describe the Chinese development of modern science, medicine, and technology since 1600. They welcomed the appearance in 2005 of Benjamin Elman's masterwork, On Their Own Terms. Now Elman has retold the story of the Jesuit impact on late imperial China, circa 1600-1800, and the Protestant era in early modern China from the 1840s to 1900 in a concise and accessible form ideal for the classroom. This coherent account of the emergence of modern science in China places that emergence in historical context for both general students of modern science and specialists of China.

Review

Elman shows that progress in Chinese science continued after 1600, as it absorbed new ideas from the West, and, for him, China's nineteenth-century failure to respond adequately to Western incursions has been exaggerated...[A Cultural History of Modern Science in China] offer[s] a new and important perspective on Sino-European interaction.

--Delia Davin (Times Literary Supplement 20070901)

Elman's study is a tremendous achievement, both in its analytical insight and empirical depth.

--Thomas S. Mullaney (Science 20090430)

In this concise but comprehensive new book, Elman makes his masterful synthesis of the scholarship in the field--including his own--accessible to nonspecialists. A textbook treating modern Chinese science up to 1900, long awaited, has at last emerged.

--Danian Hu (Isis )

In this concise, accessible, but comprehensive book, Benjamin Elman describes the effects on science of the Jesuit mission in imperial China in 1600–1800, and the latter influence of Protestants in the nineteenth century. By doing so, he places the emergence of modern science in China in historical context. (Nature )