This monumental work weaves together erudite scholarship and enticing travelogue. Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts uncovers an entirely neglected story of how the West encountered China's religion, medicine, and healing practices. It challenges the reader to see how human beings encounter difference through the structure of their own thoughts and experiences. This informative, reflective, and path-breaking volume is indispensable for scholars in medicine, anthropology, history, religion, sinology, and ethnic studies. Also, because of Barnes's clear and lively writing style, this book is an enjoyable adventure for any curious reader. (Ted Kaptchuk, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and author of The Web that Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine )

Linda L. Barnes (born 1953) is an American medical anthropologist, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research specialty is religious history and the social history of Western responses to Chinese healing traditions. She has been regularly cited as an authority in the use of religiously based practices in medicine.