- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > History / World
基本説明
The first of its kind in English, this book focuses on Isami, the eleventh generation patriarch and hereditary village head. Weaving back and forth between Isami's time in the first half of the twentieth century and his ancestors' lives in the Tokugawa and Meiji eras, Bernstein uses family history to convey a broad panoply of social life in Japan since the late 1600s. The author's forty-year friendship with members of the family lends a unique intimacy to her portrayal of their history.
Full Description
In this powerful and evocative narrative, Gail Lee Bernstein vividly re-creates the past three centuries of Japanese history by following the fortunes of a prominent Japanese family over fourteen generations. The first of its kind in English, this book focuses on Isami, the eleventh generation patriarch and hereditary village head. Weaving back and forth between Isami's time in the first half of the twentieth century and his ancestors' lives in the Tokugawa and Meiji eras, Bernstein uses family history to convey a broad panoply of social life in Japan since the late 1600s. As the story unfolds, she provides remarkable details and absorbing anecdotes about food, famines, peasant uprisings, agrarian values, marriage customs, child-rearing practices, divorces, and social networks. Isami's House describes the role of rural elites, the architecture of Japanese homes, the grooming of children for middle-class life in Tokyo, the experiences of the Japanese in Japan's wartime empire and on the homefront, the aftermath of the country's defeat, and, finally, the efforts of family members to rebuild their lives after the Occupation.
The author's forty-year friendship with members of the family lends a unique intimacy to her portrayal of their history. Readers come away with an inside view of Japanese family life, a vivid picture of early modern and modern times, and a profound understanding of how villagers were transformed into urbanites and what was gained, and lost, in the process.
Contents
List of Figures Prologue: History Revealed Acknowledgments Reader's Guide Introduction: An Agrarian Childhood Part One: Ancestors and Descendants 1 The House Isami Built 2 Kissing Cousins 3 Father of the Village 4 Strong Wives Part Two: Going Out Into the World 5 Urban Studies 6 The Marriage Pipeline 7 Frugality and Fancy Schemes Part Three: Empire, War, and Defeat 8 Outposts of Modernity 9 Isami's Children in Harm's Way 10 Hard Times on the Home Front 11 Surviving Hiroshima 12 Missed Fortunes 13 Making History Part Four: Love and Other Forms of Compensation 14 Absent Husband 15 Couples and Uncouplings 16 Mothering Epilogue: Kinwork Notes Credits Index
