Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History - Hardcover

Hinrichs, TJ

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674047370 ISBN 13: 9780674047372

Publisher: Harvard UP, 2012

Synopsis

An Illustrated History

About this title

Review:

Very impressive! An extraordinarily broad and rich compendium, Hinrichs and Barnes have orchestrated a vast collection of history and anthropological observations of professional and popular practice which will be useful for the expert and the general reader.--Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University

Hinrichs and Barnes have produced a large, ambitious, blockbusting volume that provides both encyclopedic range and contextual historical detail. The book is a great reference for a wide range of readers, including students, scholars, clinicians, and anyone seeking to better understand a medicine that is uniquely embedded in a civilization's specific cultural history.--Charlotte Furth, Professor Emerita of Chinese History, University of Southern California

Taking a historical, sociological, and anthropological approach, this expansive survey makes a scholarly pursuit accessible, with crisply edited essays and fascinating illustrations that break down a complex medical tradition whose relevance has not diminished... Hinrichs and Barnes present a rich exploration of the evolution and impact of Chinese medicine... Medical professionals and alternative medicine aficionados will find plenty to appreciate in this compelling study.--Publishers Weekly (11/02/2012)

Covering over 3,000 years of medical history, the volume demonstrates how successive schools of medical thought adopted new practices, accommodated old ones, and diverged from their own ideological and institutional roots in response to new sociopolitical contexts... The book examines the complex relationship between Chinese medicine and the West... While the sheer breadth of information contained within the volume might appear daunting, the book itself is actually quite approachable. The authors assume little foreknowledge of Chinese history on the part of the reader, and do a nice job of integrating general contextual information with specific examples of medical practice (often offset from the main text in gray boxes). The use of visual imagery, including maps, anatomic charts, and photographs of practitioners in action, further reinforces the multiplicity of ways in which Chinese medicine has been deployed in a range of settings and geographic contexts. By culling from a wide variety of primary and secondary sources and recruiting over 50 scholars to contribute to the volume, Barnes and Hinrichs are able to create a book that is thorough and comprehensive, yet not intimidating... Chinese Medicine and Healing can serve as a reference for students, scholars, and anyone looking to understand the historical roots of contemporary Chinese medical practices.-- (11/24/2013)

About the Author:

TJ Hinrichs is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University. Linda L. Barnes is Director of the Masters Program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences, at Boston University School of Medicine. She holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at BUSM and in the Division of Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University. Constance A. Cook is Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Lehigh University. Andrew Edmund Goble is Associate Professor of History at the University of Oregon. Soyoung Suh is Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth College. Paize Keulemans is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard UP
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0674047370
• ISBN 13: 9780674047372
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 470