Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World
- ISBN-10
- 1501188542
- ISBN-13
- 9781501188541
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 352
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-07-14
- Publisher
- Simon and Schuster
- Author
- Amy Stanley
Description
*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2021-07-06
- 352 pages
- Paperback
- Simon and Schuster
-
- 2020-07-16
- 212 pages
- Paperback
- Random House
Similar books
-
Tokyo Before Tokyo: Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo
By Timon ScreechThis beautifully illustrated book presents important sites and features from the rich history of Edo, taken from contemporary sources such as diaries, guidebooks, and woodblock prints.
-
Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan
By Amy StanleyThis book will set the standard for studies of prostitution in early modern Japan for decades to come.” -Anne Walthall, University of California, Irvine “Selling Women is a remarkable achievement.
-
Prisoners from Nambu: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy
By Reinier H. HesselinkPrisoners from Nambu provides a lively, engrossing narrative of this relatively obscure incident, while casting light on the history of the period as a whole.
-
The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration
By Anne WalthallIn telling Taseko's story, Anne Walthall gives us not just the first full biography in English of a peasant woman of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), but also fresh perspectives on the practices and intellectual concerns of rural ...
-
Japanese Women Writers: Twentieth Century Short Fiction
By Noriko Mizuta Lippit, Kyoko Iriye SeldenThis collection includes translated works by Japanese women writers that deal with the experiences of modern women. The work of these women represents current feminist perception, imagination and thought.
-
The Tōkaidō Road: Traveling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan
By Jilly TraganouOffers a comparative study of representations of the Tôkaidô road, the most important route of Japan during the Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras.
-
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
By Michael FinkelThe unforgettable true story of Christopher Knight, who found refuge from the pressures of modern society by living alone in the Maine woods for twenty-seven years.
-
Hideyoshi
By Mary Elizabeth BerryIn particular , I am grateful to Thomas C. Smith , Irwin Scheiner , David Keightley , Randolph Starn , Robert ... and summer fellowships from the University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , and the University of California , Berkeley .
-
Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost
By Satoko ShimazakiShuhitsu kaki-ire Edo shibai banzuke shū. 3 vols. Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu ... Edo: Izumoji Izuminojö, 1776. ... In An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan's Mega-City, 1750–1850, edited by Sumie Jones and Kenji Watanabe, 168–82.
-
Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey
By Mikiso Hane“Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan from the Perspective of Women's History. ... Bialock, David T. Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from “The Chronicles of Japan” to “The Tale of the Heike ...