The task for the historian of Japan is to capture the essence of successive ages while preserving human drama and illuminating the themes and patterns of society's development. In Japan Before Perry, Professor Totman examines the origins of Japanese civilization and explores in detail the classical, medieval, and early-modern epochs. The historical facts are woven into interpretations of the major themes in Japanese history. While studying these epochs he also describes the gradual emergence of increasing numbers of people onto the historic stage, the long-term transformation of the economy and the society, the spread of cultural sophistication, and the ultimate rise of Japanese "nationhood."

Japan Before Perry: A Short History

History

Totman, Conrad

Asia

University of California Press

Every foreign traveler in Japan is delighted by the verdant forest-shrouded mountains that thrust skyward from one end of the island chain to the other. The Japanese themselves are conscious of the lush green of their homeland, which they sometimes refer to as "the green archipelago." Yet, based on its fragile geography and centuries of extremely dense human occupation, Japan today should be an impoverished, slum-ridden, peasant society subsisting on a barren, eroded moonscape characterized by bald mountains and debris-strewn lowlands. In fact, as Conrad Totman argues in this pathbreaking work based on prodigious research, this lush verdue is not a monument to nature's benevolence and Japanese aesthetic sensibilities, but the hard-earned result of generations of human toil that have converted the archipelago into one great forest preserve. Indeed, the author shows that until the late 1600s Japan was well on her way to ecological disaster due to exploitative forestry. During the Tokugawa period, however, an extraordinary change took place resulting in a system of "regenerative forestry" that averted the devastation of Japan's forests. The Green Archipelago is the only major Western-language work on this subject and a landmark not only in Japanese history, but in the history of the environment.

The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan

This thoughtfully organized survey of Japan's early modern period (1568-1868) is a remarkable blend of political, economic, intellectual, literary, and cultural history. The only truly comprehensive study in English of the Tokugawa period, it also introduces a new ecological perspective, covering natural disasters, resource use, demographics, and river control.

Early Modern Japan

Americas

By 1853 Japan had been transformed from a sparsely populated land of nonliterate tribal peoples into an elaborately structured commercial society sustaining massive cities and a varied array of sophisticated cultural production. In this authoritative survey, Conrad Totman examines the origins of Japanese civilization and explores in detail the classical, medieval, and early-modern epochs, weaving interpretations of the major themes in Japan's cultural and political development into a rich historical narrative.

Japan before Perry: A Short History, 25th Anniversary Edition

The Lumber Industry in Early Modern Japan

University of Hawaii Press

This authoritative and accessible book charts the history of Japan from c.8000 bc to the 1990s.

A History of Japan

Wiley/Blackwell

Tokugawa Japan: The Social & Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University of Tokyo Press

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Heian Intl Pub Co

This is an updated edition of Conrad Totman’s authoritative history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day. 
<ul>
<li>The first edition was widely praised for combining sophistication and accessibility. 
</li> <li>Covers a wide range of subjects, including geology, climate, agriculture, government and politics, culture, literature, media, foreign relations, imperialism, and industrialism. 
</li> <li>Updated to include an epilogue on Japan today and tomorrow. 
</li> <li>Now includes more on women in history and more on international relations. 
</li> <li>Bibliographical listings have been updated and enlarged.</li> </ul>

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Totman, Conrad. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Totman, Conrad

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Totman, Conrad. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Japan Before Perry: A Short History

The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan

Early Modern Japan

Early Modern Japan

Japan before Perry: A Short History, 25th Anniversary Edition

The Lumber Industry in Early Modern Japan

A History of Japan

Tokugawa Japan: The Social & Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun

A History of Japan