BOOKS

Remnants of Days Past

Remnants of Days Past

A Journey through Old Japan

Watanabe Kyoji
Translated by Joseph Litsch

Japan Library series
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Culture

¥3,800 + tax

ISBN 9784866581408
220 mm x 148 mm / 472 pp. / March 2020

ISBN 9784866581545 (ePub)
ISBN 9784866581651 (PDF)

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.

 

 

 

 

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)

*information as of time of publication

Japan Library series
History

Publisher:
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Hardcover
¥3,800 + tax
ISBN 9784866581408
220 mm x 148 mm / 472 pp. / March 2020

eBook
ISBN 9784866581545 (ePub)
ISBN 9784866581651 (PDF)

1. Illusions of a Civilization / 2. Cheerful People / 3. Simplicity and Wealth / 4. Friendliness and Courtesy / 5. Fullness and Variety / 6. Labor and the Body / 7. Freedom and Status / 8. The Naked Body and Sex / 9. The Status of Women / 10. A Children’s Paradise / 11. Scenery and Cosmology / 12. Living Things and Cosmology / 13. Religious Beliefs and Festivals / 14. Barriers of the Mind / Afterword / A Postscript to the Heibonsha Library Edition / Commentary: Sympathy is the Best Method for Understanding—Hirakawa Sukehiro / References: Important People of Note / Bibliography / Index

昭和を問うなら開国を問え。そのためには開国以前の文明を問え。幕末から明治に日本を訪れた異邦人の訪日記から、当時の日本人の暮らしぶりを14の章に分けて描写する。近代日本が失ったものの意味を問い直した大作。

渡辺京二
1930年、京都市生まれ。日本近代史家。書評紙編集者などを経て、河合塾福岡校講師。熊本市在住。

*著者略歴は書籍刊行時のものを表示しています。

Original Japanese Edition

逝きし世の面影

渡辺京二 著

平凡社 刊

2005/09/05