The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.19 (923 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0674035291 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 250 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-01-14 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This is the story of a Chinese doctor, his book, and the creatures that danced within its pages. In the first book-length study in English of Li’s text, Carla Nappi reveals a “cabinet of curiosities” of gems, beasts, and oddities whose author was devoted to using natural history to guide the application of natural and artificial objects as medical drugs. The Monkey and the Inkpot introduces natural history in sixteenth-century China through the iconic Bencao gangmu (Systematic materia medica) of Li Shizhen (1518–1593).The encyclopedic Bencao gangmu is widely lauded as a classic embodiment of pre-modern Chinese medical thought. The Monkey and the Inkpot also illuminates the modern fate of a book that continues to shape alternative healing practices, global pharmaceutical markets, and Chinese culture.. Nappi examines the making of facts and weighing of evidence in a massive collection where tales of wildmen and dragons were recorded alongside recipes for ginseng and peonies.Nappi challenges the idea of a monolithic tradition of Chinese herbal medicine by showing the importance of debate and disagreement in early modern schola
(J. W. Nappi draws us into the Bencao's complexities, and into the fertile and restless mind of its creator, Li Shizhen. (Paula Findlen, Stanford University)This first book-length treatment of the Bencao Gangmu in English contains a great deal of interest and is undoubtedly a major contribution to its field. Nappi opens the door on Li's cabinet of wonders. (Steve Moore Fortean Times)A fascinating, informative study for readers interested in the history of medicine or natural knowledge in China. Dauben Choice 2010-04-01) . Carla Nappi takes us into one of the greatest Chinese encyclopedias of the natural world and its medicinal properties, the Bencao gangmu, which inspired the vision of the Chinese encyclopedia that haunts the pages of Borges and Foucault
E. N. Anderson said Delightful study of great work. Carla Nappi's book is a charming, literate, and thoroughly informed long essay on Li Shizhen's Bencao Gangmu (Basic Herbal), the great Chinese herbal published in 1596 and still the standard reference for Chinese herbal medicine. Li's book was probably the greatest single botanical work in the world of its time, though the west soon surpassed it (in the works of Parkinson, Ray, Tournefort and many others). Georges Metailie once took me to task for calling it the greatest premodern herbal, not realizing I was using "modern" in the histo
Carla Nappi is Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia