ESSAY REVIEW The History of East Asian Science: State of the Art Morris F. Low* James Reardon-Anderson, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIH The Study of Change: Chemistry in China, 1840- 1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xvi +444 pp. ISBN o-521-39150-4 Cloth ;E45.00/$59.50. H. Beukers, A. M. Luyendijk-Elshout, M. E. van Opstall and F. Vos (eds), Red- Hair M edicine: Dutch- Japanese M edical Relations, Nieuwe Nederlandse Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis der Geneeskunde en der Natuurwetenschappen, No. 36, Publications of the Netherlands Association for Japanese Studies, No. 5 (Amsterdam/Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 1991), 114 pp. ISBN 90-6203-680-5 Paperback $20.00. Masao Watanabe, The Japanese and W estern Science, translated from the German by 0. T. Benfey, foreword by E. 0. Reischauer, new epilogue by the author (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) xvi+ 141 pp. ISBN O-8 122-8252-3 Cloth E21.95. James R. Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan: Building a Research Tradition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), xvii+371 pp. ISBN O-300-04261-2 Cloth $36.00/f25.00. THE BOOKS under review, although all published recently, actually provide a cross-section of the history of East Asian science over the past fifteen years and suggest areas which need to be addressed by the profession. It is an oppor- tunity to reflect on the state of the art, and to comment on what are arguably the most important works on the history of modern Chinese and Japanese science published in English in the last decade.’ For the authors, as for other historians, source materials have been critical to their craft. In the past, constraints of language, lack of source materials and limited understanding of Asian countries curbed comparative studies. While *Department of Japanese Studies, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, Victoria 3168, Australia. ‘For a wider survey of Japan literature see M. F. Low, ‘The Butterfly and the Frigate: Social Studies of Science in Japan’, Social Studies of Science 19 (May 1989), 313-342. Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 617-686, 1993. 0039-3681/93 $6.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain Pergamon Press Ltd.