Ever since Joseph Needham published the first volume of Science and Civilisation in China in 1954, many important works have been produced on East Asian science, technology, and medicine in the pre-modern period. The history of science, technology, and medicine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, has been largely neglected. It began to attract some attention only recently with the rapid economic growth in the region. Morris Low's edited volume of Osiris (Volume 13, 1998), with the title of Beyond Joseph Needham: Science, Technology, and Medicine in East and Southeast Asia, was a notable example of the new direction of the field: eleven out of twelve case-studies were about the nineteenth and twentieth century; and five of them were on Japanese science, technology, and medicine. Low has done a marvelous editorial job once again in his new book, Building a Modern Japan: Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Meiji Era and Beyond, which is a very valuable addition to this rapidly growing field.
