Science between Europe and Asia (eBook)

Contents 6
Contributors 8
About the Contributors 10
Introduction 15
Part 1: On Technologies 24
Reflections on the Transmission and Transformation of Technologies: Agriculture, Printing and Gunpowder between East and West 25
The Issue of Technology 26
Agriculture in East and West 27
The Primacy of Agriculture 27
Agricultural Development and the Industrial Revolution in Britain 27
The Size of Landholdings 28
Machinery and Management 28
Social Effects 28
The Chinese Experience 29
The Wet-Rice Environment 29
The Primacy of Skill 29
Social Effects 30
The Case of Gunpowder 30
The Chinese Invention 31
Gunpowder and Social Change in East and West 31
The Case of Printing 33
The Invention of Printing in China 33
Printing and Social Change in China 34
Printing and Social Change in the West 35
Technology and Culture 36
The Ottoman Empire and the Technological Dialogue Between Europe and Asia: The Case of Military Technology and Know-How in the Gunpowder Age 39
The Context for Technological Dialogue 39
Gunpowder Technology and the Ottomans 40
The Transfer of European Military Technology to the Ottomans via Military Treatises 42
Foreign Experts and "Brain Gain'' 46
The Ottomans' Role in the Diffusion of Gunpowder Technology in Asia 49
Conclusion 50
General Observations on the Ottoman Military Industry, 1774-1839: Problems of Organization and Standardization 52
Standardization of the Caliber: The 1805 and the 1839 Regulations 54
The 1805 Regulations for the Field Army, the Fortresses, and the Navy 54
The 1839 Regulations Concerning the Field and Garrison Artillery 55
The Mobility of the Reformed Field Artillery: Guns and Gun Carriages 58
Possible Reasons for Failure 61
Conclusion 65
Cultural Attitudes and Horse Technologies: A View on Chariots and Stirrups from the Eastern End of the Eurasian Continent 67
The Appearance of the Horse-Drawn Chariot in China 68
Ostentation, Ritual, and Society 74
Symbolic Value and Practical Use 76
Horse-Riding and Social Status After the Han Dynasty 77
The Stirrup and Heavily Armoured Mounted Warriors 78
The Silent Adoption of a New Riding Help 81
Conclusion 82
Part 2: On Maps, Astronomical Instruments, Clocks and Calendars 84
Patchwork - The Norm of Mapmaking Practices for Western Asia in Catholic and Protestant Europe As Well As in Istanbul Between 1550 and 1750? 85
Observations on Practices of Mapmaking Before Printing 86
On Methods and Techniques Used for Creating Early Modern Maps in Venice and Istanbul 94
Hajj Khal fa’s and Abu Bakr’s Adaptations of Mercator/Hondius’and Willem and Joan Blaeu’s Maps 101
Conclusion 107
The Ottoman Ambassador's Curiosity Coffer: Eclipse Prediction with De La Hire's ``Machine'' Crafted by Bion of Paris 110
Diplomats Pave the Way 110
The Ottoman Ambassador Sets Eyes on the Eclipsarium 111
Predicting Eclipses at a Glance: Ingenious Mechanisms Come to the Rescue 113
An Ottoman Text Introducing De La Hire's Eclipse Calculator 117
The Commissioner: An Ambassador Fond of Technical Novelties 118
The Translator: A Bureaucrat Competent in Mathematics 120
The Translation into Ottoman Turkish: ``On the Cycles of Conjunction and Opposition'' 121
The Eclipse Calculator ``De La Hire - Bion'' 123
The Translator's Evaluation of the Eclipse Calculator 126
Concluding Remarks 128
The Clockmaker Family Meyer and Their Watch Keeping the alla turca Time 131
The ezânî or alla turca Time 132
Alla turca Clock Mechanisms 132
Johann Meyer's Manually Adjusted alla turca Watch 134
Johann Meyer's Automatic alla turca Watch 135
Astronomical Background of the alla turca Watch 137
Conclusion 140
Appendix: The Clockmaker Family Meyer 141
The Adoption and Adaptation of Mechanical Clocks in Japan 143
The Introduction of Mechanical Clocks in China and Japan 144
Adapting Clocks to the Seasonal Time System 146
The Time Bell and the Use of Clocks in Edo Japan 150
The Engineering Career of Hisashige Tanaka 152
Conclusion 154
Adoption and Resistance: Zhang Yongjing and Ancient Chinese Calendrical Methods 156
Zhang Yongjing and Dingli Yuheng 157
Against Western Methods: The Problem of Vision 158
The Picture of the Cosmos 160
The Invention of Ancient Methods 162
Metaphysical Foundations of the Calendar: Li and Shu 163
Conclusion 165
Part 3: On Localizing, Appropriating and Translating New Knowledge 167
Travelling Both Ways: The Adaptation of Disciplines, Scientific Textbooks and Institutions 168
Institutionalization of Psychoanalysis 171
Geology Textbooks in Tamil 173
Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century India 176
Conclusion 178
Between Translation and Adaptation: Turkish Editions of Ganot's Traité 180
Antranik Ginodotrcikyan: Translator of the Traité and Physics Teacher at the Imperial School of Medicine 182
Turkish Editions of Ganot's Traité's: An Analysis of the Preface and Textual Content 183
The First Edition of Idotlm-i Hikmet-i Tabiiye (IHT1, 1876) 185
The Second Edition of Idotlm-i Hikmet-i Tabiiye (IHT2, 1886-1891) 189
Conclusion 193
Eclecticism and Appropriation of the New Scientific Methods by the Greek-Speaking Scholars in the Ottoman Empire 195
Historiographical Remarks 196
L'Éclectism 201
On Defining Science 203
Greek Eclecticism? 206
Part 4: On Medicine and Medical Practices 209
Conveying Chinese Medicine to Seventeenth-Century Europe 210
Early Jesuit Interest in Chinese Medicine 214
The Jesuits and the Dutch 220
Conclusion 230
Adoption and Adaption: A Study of Medical Ideas and Techniques in Colonial India 234
Medicine in the Pre-colonial India 235
The Colonial Watershed 239
How Electricity Energizes the Body: Electrotherapeutics and its Analogy of Life in the Japanese Medical Context 245
Japan's Encounter with Electrotherapeutics 246
Electrotherapeutics in the Market 252
Between the Traditional and the Modern 257
What is `Islamic' in Islamic Medicine? An Overview 259
Formation of Islamic State 261
Formation of Islamic shari`at 263
Islam and Medicine in the Modern Period 266
Conclusion 269
Index 271