Kaempfer's Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed - Tapa blanda

Kaempfer's Japan deserves a broad readership.-- "Japanese Studies" This full-scale Western gaze on Japan is a triumph of lucid observation and of judicious information-gathering ... a unique historical document, a valuable work of reference, and a remarkable model of cross-cultural understanding achieved under unpropitious conditions.-- "Japanese Journal of Religious Studies" Bodart-Bailey has been scrupulous, and this edition of Kaempfer now supersedes all others.-- "Japan Times" Bodart-Bailey's Kaempfer's Japan not only provides a critical first-hand insight into Tokugawa Japan, but will also serve as the centerpiece of the expanding scholarship on Kaempfer that has achieved a resurgence in Japan, the United States, and Europe over the past two decades-- "Journal of Asian Studies" Robust and meticulously crafted-- "The Historian" [This] translation gives a fresh view of Kaempfer and his magnum opus.... Well deserves a place on many shelves.-- "Monumenta Nipponica"

Engelbert Kaempfer's work was a best-seller from the moment it was published in London in 1727 and 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 oar flawed, being based on the work of an 18th 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 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 humour and freshness of Kaempfer's observations and impressions. In Kaempfer's Japan we have, for the first time, and accurate and thoroughly readable annotated translation of Kaempfer's colourful account of pre-modern Japan.