The First Samurai: Isolationism in Englebert Kaempfer's 1727 History of Japan
It doesn't take a front-page article in the New York Times to certify that Japanese culture is currently "hip in American mainstream." (1) From sushi to manga, from taiko drumming to the latest technological toy, Americans--especially the young--embrace all things Japanese. Yet it might be worth pausing to ask not only what Japan represents through a broad spectrum of cultural, artistic, and even gastronomic events, but also how it functions: what is the semiotic purpose of Japan as it manifests itself in the West? What cultural work within current social practice does Japan perform? How is it currently being deployed? (2) These questions have special relevancy in the wake of the recently popular film Lost in Translation, where Tokyo featured less as an image of itself, and more as an emblem of spiritual anomie, a place where the unlikely hero and heroine explore the loneliest reaches of their souls. They seem even more pertinent in the case of The Last Samurai, a 2003 film coproduced by Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise, in which America's most famous scientologist becomes a man of "integrity" and "honor" by subjecting himself to the rigorous and disciplined life of pre-Meiji Japan. Certainly throughout modern Western history, Japan has functioned as place of novelty, as a source for new ideas. But more importantly, it has served to initiate self-investigation: more than many other locations, Japan facilitates Western introspection and the self-definition that follows. In a sense, Japan becomes a mythical geography that, by the very nature of its strange otherness, creates a space for meditation upon key issues of both personal and national identity. This was as much the case in 1727--which saw the translation and publication of Englebert Kaempfer's two-volume work, A History of Japan: Giving an Account of the Ancient and Present State of the Government of that Empire--as it is now. (3) This remarkable work, long recognized among Japanese scholars, now receives additional attention from eighteenth-century scholars, who appreciate it as a significant record of early-modern, intercultural contact: currently, a Web page edited by Wolfgang Michel-Zaitzu of Kyushu University serves as a lively forum in English, German, and Japanese for the discussion of all of Kaempfer's work, with the History receiving a great deal of the attention. (4) Meanwhile recent discussions of the English translation of The History of Japan appear in essays by Annette Keogh and Robert Markley. (5) For the former, Kaempfer's translated history conceptualizes "the increasing importance of vemacular languages amongst the nations of Europe," while for the latter, the same history demonstrates how Japan functioned as a fundamental challenge to the rhetoric of European imperialism. Kaempfer's work, originally written in High Dutch at the end of the seventeenth century, presents itself as an encyclopedic summary of the natural wonders of an island nation. Kaempfer--who had previously authored the naturalistic work Amoenitaum Exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum (published in 1712 and also called Amoenitales Exotica or Exotic Pleasures)--provides a comprehensive survey of Japanese minerals and metals, the fertility of its plants, and the plenitude of its animals. He covers as well its reptiles and insects, its fish and shells, and its extraordinary medical practices. Especially notable is Kaempfer's coverage of the political state of Japan, including a listing of the hereditary emperors; his description of various Japanese religions and religious practices; his account of late seventeenth-century Nagasaki, from its palaces to its brothels; and his narration of the annual trip from Nagasaki to Jedo (the old German name for Tokyo), undertaken, as he writes, so that the Dutch visitors can "pay their duties" to the appropriate Japanese officials (2:393). The work, as Keogh mentions, is all the more remarkable for the circumstances under which it was written: arriving in Japan on 25 September 1690, Kaempfer stayed until 31 October 1692. …
A World Elsewhere: Europe's Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
"civic hall" have been taken synonymously to mean that edifice characteristically regarded by contemporaries as the seat of whatever degree of autonomous civic administration a particular town may have enjoyed' (p. 9). Using this all-embracing criterion his list of 178 towns with halls seems a good basis for the study of these structures until we discover that only thirty-one of them survive substantially intact together with a further fourteen which survive in part or much altered form. This is a disappointingly small number upon which to base a study which is architecturally focused. The attendant difficulty of knowing much about the early phases of these halls may explain why Professor Tittler has produced no plans or diagrams of their layout. This lack of an extensive artifactual base makes it difficult for the author rigorously to apply some of the conceptual and analytical tools developed by Dr Geertz. Undaunted, he makes an attempt in a chapter on ' Civic culture and the doorway to the community'. 'The hall', he writes, 'seemed likely to show how a particular building type could represent such intangible concepts as power, authority and legitimacy within the community' (p. 4). He sees it as a doorway which mediates (by admitting or barring people) between various conflicting cultures: between an ' urban' and an 'agrarian' culture (the former open to social innovation, impersonal, and bourgeois; the latter dominated by custom, kinship and hierarchical ties), between licence, potential disorder and subversion on the one hand and order and authority on the other. Such contrasts seem too stark to this reviewer but they may help to explain why the author places such emphasis on the hall as the symbol of order, authority and legitimacy. This it undoubtedly was, as he shows from evidence drawn in the main from the great chartered boroughs. But its symbolism may have been diverse rather than singular. Take, for instance, the role of civic portraiture which bedecked the mayor's court. It was developed during the sixteenth century, we are told, to legitimize civic leadership through the display of portraits of previous mayors; Norwich is cited as an excellent example of this type of legitimation. In a sense this is so, but it is worth noting that of twenty-four civic dignitaries between 1518 and 1646 whose portraits furnished the court-room at Norwich only ten were mayors. The rest were either generous benefactors to the city or prominent legal officers. Faced with such evidence it has been suggested that besides promoting legitimacy and authority these portraits ' acted to restrain the unbridled exercise of that authority... and encouraged public service and private beneficence by promoting the desire for civic fame and recognition'.
The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company
During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into "the grandest society of merchants in the universe". As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire. In a tapestry ranging from Southern Africa to north-west America, and from the reign of Elizabeth I to that of Victoria, bizarre locations and roguish personality abound. From Bombay to Singapore and Hong Kong the political geography of today is, in some respects, the result of the Company. This book looks at the history of the East India Company.