Lang's Lifeline
Graeme Stuart Lang was born in Britain. He made a B.A. at Simon Fraser University and an M.A., PhD at York University. He is now (Dec 00) associate professor position at HongKong's City University. His research interests are sociological and ecological aspects of Asian societies, religions and science and comparative history of science in Asia and Europe.

Works related to the Grand Question:
(1) 1997: a chapter titled "Structural factors in the origins of modern science: a comparison of China and Europe", in a book by Steven Totosy de Zepetnek and Jennifer Jay (eds.): East Asian Cultural and Historical Perspectives. Edmonton: University of Alberta Research Institute for Comparative Literature and Cross-Cultural Studies, pp.71-96.
(2) 1997: "State systems and the origins of modern science: a comparison of Europe and China", East-West Dialogue 2,1:16-31.
(3) 1998: "Why science did not develop in China: a historical comparison with Europe" in China News Digest (CND), June 19, 1998.

Links:
Graeme Lang's homepage at HongKong City University. His 1998-paper. His e-mail : ssgslang@cityu.edu.hk.

My subjective view of Graeme Lang's contribution to the Grand Issue
Lang striked it right when he identified stable political division to be a factor of scientific progress. He observed rightly that the periods when China was divided were more productive scientifically. He similarly correctly gauged the coastline profile of China and Western Europe to have been the cause for their diverging histories. However, he missed the military side of the story, which I developp in Le Secret de l'Occident and he does not check that this theory works as well for other civilizations outside of China (which I do in the mentioned book).

Scholarship: 3/5

Theory: 5/5