Tokugawa Japan as a model for the world : the past as prologue -- Author's introduction : the changing image of the Tokugawa period -- Part I. Rakuchū rakugai-zu : paintings of scenes in and around Kyoto ; "Come, let us be crazy" : izumo no okuni and ryūtatsu kouta ; Kōetsu, sōtatsu, and the classical revival -- Part II. All roads lead to Edo : Bashō's praise of Tokugawa ; An enlightened practical scientist : Kaibara Ekiken, gazetteerist and naturalist ; A visitor in the Sakoku era : Kaempfer and Genroku Japan ; Winter 1709 : east-west dialogue in the Christian compound -- Part III. The century of natural history : eighteenth-century Japan and the west ; A letter with no addressee : Sugita Gempaku, nine times blessed old man ; Reading Sugita Gempaku's memoir : Dawn of Western Science in Japan ; Pictures of peace -- Part IV. Poet of the Pax Tokugawana : Yosa Buson ; Buson's youthful elegy : "Mourning the old sage Hokuju" ; Women becoming more and more beautiful : Buson and Harunobu ; Coping with the long peace : young rowdies, Ōta Nampo ; The French Revolution and Japan : mild spring weather in a "Little Ice Age" -- Part V. Toward the end of the Pax Tokugawana ; Tokugawa colors and design -- Afterword -- Chronology
Summary:
"Some people view Tokugawa Japan through the "exotic Edo" lens. Others see the era as Japan's dark ages. And those who reject both of these extremes tend to think of it as simply the run-up to Japan's modernization. Yet it would be more accurate to see it as a vast flowering of culture spearheaded by the Rinpa school of art led and developed by Tawaraya Sōtatsu and Ogata Kōrin; the exquisite poetry of Matsuo Bashō and Yosa Buson; the groundbreaking natural science treatises by Kaibara Ekiken and others; Arai Hakuseki's Seiyō kibun [Tidings of the West] and Sugita Genpaku's Rangaku kotohajime [The Dawn of Western Science in Japan]; and by such towering figures as Watanabe Kazan and Hiraga Gennai. All told, the Tokugawa period was arguably the high-water mark of Japan's long cultural traditions. This ambitious work provides a comprehensive review of the distinctive culture that emerged in the limited space of the Tokugawa period's 250 years and the narrow confines of Japan. As such, it stands at the forefront of comparative cultural studies and points the way to new insights. This definitive volume is the culmination of a lifetime of work by a scholar whose research on the Tokugawa era has been recognized with awards from, inter alia, the Japan Art Academy and the Japan Academy"--Provided by publisher
