Watanabe Kyoji Remnants of Days Past | JAPAN LIBRARY

 Remnants of Days Past | JAPAN LIBRARY

Remnants of Days Past

A Journey through Old Japan

Watanabe Kyoji
Translated by Joseph Litsch

Published Titles / History

￥3,800

Published by JPIC | ISBN 978-4-86658-140-8 (Hardcover) | 480 pages | 220mm (h) x 148mm (w) | March 2020




English 
日本語

About the Book


Remnants of Days Past, by Kyoji Watanabe, is an epic journey into Japan’s past. It is a comprehensive look at the Tokugawa rule and the Edo period, an age in which the civilization of “Old Japan” was still on display and which, for better or worse, ceased to exist with the advent of modernization. Watanabe covers in great detail several topics pertaining to this civilization, including the status and position of the various social classes, views of women and children, attitudes towards sex, labor, and the body and religious beliefs, as well as the unique cosmology behind this civilization. Watanabe makes use of a number of works written by foreign observers who visited Japan from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji to support his views. As the author writes in the book, “What is important in my mind is the reality that the civilization of ‘Old Japan’ developed through a universal desire, as well as the ideas behind this desire, to make it as comfortable as possible for human existence.” This is a massive work that takes an in-depth look at what modern Japan has lost.


About the Author
WATANABE Kyoji

Watanabe Kyoji, a historian of modern Japan, was born in Kyoto in 1930. He has worked as a book review editor and is currently an instructor at the Kawaijuku Education Center in Fukuoka. He lives in Kumamoto City.

Major Works:

Kita Ikki (Kita Ikki) (Asahi Shimbunsha, 1985)
Nihon Komyun Shugi no Keifu (The School of Japanese Communism) (Ashi Shobo, 1980)

Hyoden Miyazaki Toten (A Critical Biography of Miyazaki Toten) (Daiwa Shobo, 1976)
Watanabe Kyoji Hyoron Shusei, Zenyonkan (The Collected Works of Watanabe Kyoji, Volumes 1-4) (Ashi Shobo, 2000)

Recent Works:

Nihon Kinsei no Kigen (The Birth of Modern Japan) (Yudachisha, 2004)
Edo to iu Genkei (Fantastic Views of Edo) (Gen Shobo, 2004)

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