Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China
By Simon Winchester
Viking £20, 336 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16

The name Joseph Needham is not well-known. Simon Winchester, who has written a succinct and enjoyable account of his life, first came across him while writing a travel book, The River at the Centre of the World (1996). He wanted to find out about the boats that plied the Yangtze, and Needham, he learnt, was one of two authorities on the matter. A notably eccentric Cambridge scholar, Needham was actually a biochemist by training, but his outstanding achievement was the 24-volumeScience and Civilisation in China, the first volume of which was published in 1954.