The Dog Shogun

Download or read book The Dog Shogun written by Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2006-04-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tsunayoshi (1646–1709), the fifth Tokugawa shogun, is one of the most notorious figures in Japanese history. Viewed by many as a tyrant, his policies were deemed eccentric, extreme, and unorthodox. His Laws of Compassion, which made the maltreatment of dogs an offense punishable by death, earned him the nickname Dog Shogun, by which he is still popularly known today. However, Tsunayoshi’s rule coincides with the famed Genroku era, a period of unprecedented cultural growth and prosperity that Japan would not experience again until the mid-twentieth century. It was under Tsunayoshi that for the first time in Japanese history considerable numbers of ordinary townspeople were in a financial position to acquire an education and enjoy many of the amusements previously reserved for the ruling elite. Based on a masterful re-examination of primary sources, this exciting new work by a senior scholar of the Tokugawa period maintains that Tsunayoshi’s notoriety stems largely from the work of samurai historians and officials who saw their privileges challenged by a ruler sympathetic to commoners. Beatrice Bodart-Bailey’s insightful analysis of Tsunayoshi’s background sheds new light on his personality and the policies associated with his shogunate. Tsunayoshi was the fourth son of Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–1651) and left largely in the care of his mother, the daughter of a greengrocer. Under her influence, Bodart-Bailey argues, the future ruler rebelled against the values of his class. As evidence she cites the fact that, as shogun, Tsunayoshi not only decreed the registration of dogs, which were kept in large numbers by samurai and posed a threat to the populace, but also the registration of pregnant women and young children to prevent infanticide. He decreed, moreover, that officials take on the onerous tasks of finding homes for abandoned children and caring for sick travelers. In the eyes of his detractors, Tsunayoshi’s interest in Confucian and Buddhist studies and his other intellectual pursuits were merely distractions for a dilettante. Bodart-Bailey counters that view by pointing out that one of Japan’s most important political philosophers, Ogyû Sorai, learned his craft under the fifth shogun. Sorai not only praised Tsunayoshi’s government, but his writings constitute the theoretical framework for many of the ruler’s controversial policies. Another salutary aspect of Tsunayoshi’s leadership that Bodart-Bailey brings to light is his role in preventing the famines and riots that would have undoubtedly taken place following the worst earthquake and tsunami as well as the most violent eruption of Mount Fuji in history—all of which occurred during the final years of Tsunayoshi's shogunate. The Dog Shogun is a thoroughly revisionist work of Japanese political history that touches on many social, intellectual, and economic developments as well. As such it promises to become a standard text on late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth-century Japan.

Download or read book Shoguns City written by Noel Nouet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1995. Some thirty years have passed since the death of Noel Nouet. He was a revered teacher, historian, writer and talented woodblock artist who became the author’s person friend during the 1950s in Japan. The original French edition of this book (1961) began with Noel Nouer's description of what he intended his book to be. He had no claims, he said, to have written a scholarly work. Rather he wanted 'to present a kind of emakimono, picture-scroll, of Tokyo' that would be 'pleasant to peruse’.

Download or read book The Tokugawa World written by Gary P. Leupp and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-20 with total page 1484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over 60 contributions, The Tokugawa World presents the latest scholarship on early modern Japan from an international team of specialists in a volume that is unmatched in its breadth and scope. In its early modern period, under the Tokugawa shoguns, Japan was a world apart. For over two centuries the shogun’s subjects were forbidden to travel abroad and few outsiders were admitted. Yet in this period, Japan evolved as a nascent capitalist society that could rapidly adjust to its incorporation into the world system after its forced "opening" in the 1850s. The Tokugawa World demonstrates how Japan’s early modern society took shape and evolved: a world of low and high cultures, comic books and Confucian academies, soba restaurants and imperial music recitals, rigid enforcement of social hierarchy yet also ongoing resistance to class oppression. A world of outcasts, puppeteers, herbal doctors, samurai officials, businesswomen, scientists, scholars, blind lutenists, peasant rebels, tea-masters, sumo wrestlers, and wage workers. Covering a variety of features of the Tokugawa world including the physical landscape, economy, art and literature, religion and thought, and education and science, this volume is essential reading for all students and scholars of early modern Japan.

Download or read book Kaempfer's Japan written by Engelbert Kaempfer and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1999-04-01 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engelbert Kaempfer's History of Japan was a best-seller from the moment it was published in London in 1727. Born in Westphalia in 1651, Kaempfer traveled throughout the Near and Far East before settling in Japan as physician to the trading settlement of the Dutch East India Company at Nagasaki. During his two years residence, he made two extensive trips around Japan in 1691 and 1692, collecting, according to the British historian Boxer, "an astonishing amount of valuable and accurate information." He also learned all he could from the few Japanese who came to Deshima for instruction in the European sciences. To these observations, Kaempfer added details he had gathered from a wide reading of travelers' accounts and the reports of previous trading delegations. The result was the first scholarly study of Tokugawa Japan in the West, a work that greatly influenced the European view of Japan throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, serving as a reference for a variety of works ranging from encyclopedias to the libretto of "The Mikado." Kaempfer's work remains one of the most valuable sources for historians of the Tokugawa period. The narrative describes what no Japanese was permitted to record (the details of the shogun's castle, for example) and what no Japanese thought worthy of recording (the minutiae of everyday life). However, all previous translations of the History are flawed, being based on the work of an eighteenth-century Swiss translator or that of the German editor some fifty years later who had little knowledge of Japan and resented Kaempfer's praise of the heathen country. Beatrice Bodart-Bailey's impressive new translation of this classic, which reflects careful study of Kaempfer's original manuscript, reclaims the work for the modern reader, placing it in the context of what is currently known about Tokugawa Japan and restoring the humor and freshness of Kaempfer's observations and impressions. In Kaempfer's Japan we have, for the first time, an accurate and thoroughly readable annotated translation of Kaempfer's colorful account of pre-modern Japan.

Download or read book The Lost Wolves of Japan written by Brett L. Walker and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Japanese once revered the wolf as Oguchi no Magami, or Large-Mouthed Pure God, but as Japan began its modern transformation wolves lost their otherworldly status and became noxious animals that needed to be killed. By 1905 they had disappeared from the country. In this spirited and absorbing narrative, Brett Walker takes a deep look at the scientific, cultural, and environmental dimensions of wolf extinction in Japan and tracks changing attitudes toward nature through Japan's long history. Grain farmers once worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching the elusive canine to protect their crops from the sharp hooves and voracious appetites of wild boars and deer. Talismans and charms adorned with images of wolves protected against fire, disease, and other calamities and brought fertility to agrarian communities and to couples hoping to have children. The Ainu people believed that they were born from the union of a wolflike creature and a goddess. In the eighteenth century, wolves were seen as rabid man-killers in many parts of Japan. Highly ritualized wolf hunts were instigated to cleanse the landscape of what many considered as demons. By the nineteenth century, however, the destruction of wolves had become decidedly unceremonious, as seen on the island of Hokkaido. Through poisoning, hired hunters, and a bounty system, one of the archipelago's largest carnivores was systematically erased. The story of wolf extinction exposes the underside of Japan's modernization. Certain wolf scientists still camp out in Japan to listen for any trace of the elusive canines. The quiet they experience reminds us of the profound silence that awaits all humanity when, as the Japanese priest Kenko taught almost seven centuries ago, we "look on fellow sentient creatures without feeling compassion."

Download or read book The History of the World in Fifty Dogs written by Mackenzi Lee and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated stories about dogs that knew how to sit, stay, and witness history—from the loyal Greyfriars Bobby to Lizzie Borden’s Boston Terriers. Most dog lovers know Fido and Laika, but how about Martha, Paul McCartney’s Old English Sheepdog? Or Peritas, Alexander the Great’s trusted canine companion? As long as there have been humans, those humans have had beloved companions—their dogs. From the ancient Egyptians mummifying their pups, to the Indian legend of the king who refused to enter the afterlife unless his dog was allowed there too, to the modern meme and popularity of terms like the corgi sploot, humans are undeniably obsessed with their dogs. Told in short, illustrated essays that are interspersed with both historical and canine factoids, The History of the World in Fifty Dogs brings to life some of history’s most memorable moments through the stories of the dogs that saw them happen.

Download or read book The Pawprints of History written by Stanley Coren and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-04-18 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pawprints of History shines a new light on a favorite subject -- the relationship between humans and their four-legged best friends. Stanley Coren, a renowned expert on dog-human interactions, has combed the annals of history and found captivating stories of how dogs have lent a helping paw and influenced the actions, decisions, and fates of well-known figures from every era and throughout the world. As history's great figures strut across the stage, Coren guides us from the wings, adoringly picking out the canine cameos and giving every dog of distinction its day. In this unparalleled chronicle, we see how Florence Nightingale's chance encounter with a wounded dog changed her life by leading her to the vocation of nursing. We learn why Dr. Freud's Chow Chow attended all of his therapy sessions and how the life of the Fifth Dalai Lama was saved by a dog who shared his bed. Dogs have even found their way to the battlefield -- great military leaders such as Robert the Bruce and Omar Bradley have shared their lives, exploits, and gunfire with dogs. From Wagner, who admitted that one of the arias in the opera Siegfried was "written" by one of his dogs, to the dogs that inspired and lived with Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Johnson, and Clinton, these loving canines do double duty as loyal pets and creative muses. From war to art, across the spectrum of human endeavor and achievement, there often stands, not only at his side but leading the way, man's beloved "best friend." For those who believe that behind every great person is a good dog, the uplifting stories in The Pawprints of History will be a lasting delight.