Mapping Early Modern Japan

"The early modern Japanese geographical archive is as distinctive and diverse as any in the world. Yet the very profusion of these texts, and their slippage across disparate genres (from maps and gazetteers to travel accounts and imaginative writings), have made it difficult to grasp Tokugawa spatial sensibilities as a whole. Mapping Early Modern Japan gives us our first comprehensive overview of this fluid field. Like the texts she so elegantly describes, Yonemoto's careful research 'cracks the geographic code' of literate Edo for English-language readers. A superb addition to the growing body of early modern geo-historical studies."—Kären Wigen, coauthor of The Myth of Continents

"A bold and ambitious work that traces the ways Japanese people have drawn maps and represented travel from ancient times through the mid-nineteenth century. It contains a novel juxtaposition of maps in all shapes and sizes, poetry, travel accounts, encyclopedias, satire and parodies, and demonstrates how these shared the same mental universe. In short, this is one of the best examples I have seen of the 'new' cultural history in a Japanese context."—Anne Walthall, author of The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration

"Fascinating! An unusual book on ‘geo-sophy’—wisdom on geography and maps—among the Japanese, before the global rationalization and standardization of modern cartography. Marcia Yonemoto tells the delightful life stories of places and maps, with their emotions, opinions, perspectives and more. A truly enjoyable history."—Thongchai Winichakul, author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation