Provides an invaluable and very accessible addition to existing biographic sources and references, not least because of the supporting biographies of major writers and the historical and cultural notes provided.

Provides an invaluable and very accessible addition to existing biographic sources and references, not least because of the supporting biographies of major writers and the historical and cultural notes provided.

Tuberculosis ran rampant in Japan during the late Meiji and Taisho years (1880s–1920s). Many of the victims of the then incurable disease were young female workers from the rural areas, who were trying to support their families by working in the new textile factories. The Japanese government of the time, however, seemed unprepared to tackle the epidemic. Elisheva A. Perelman argues that pragmatism and utilitarianism dominated the thinking of the administration, which saw little point in providing health services to a group of politically insignificant patients. This created a space for American evangelical organizations to offer their services. Perelman sees the relationship between the Japanese government and the evangelists as one of moral entrepreneurship on both sides. All the parties involved were trying to occupy the moral high ground. In the end, an uneasy but mutually beneficial arrangement was reached: the government accepted the evangelists’ assistance in providing relief to some tuberculosis patients, and the evangelists gained an opportunity to spread Christianity further in the country. Nonetheless, the patients remained a marginalized group as they possessed little agency over how they were treated. “Perelman captures the strategies that enabled Protestant missionaries to become a central force in treating tuberculosis and providing social services in prewar Japan. Acting as ‘moral entrepreneurs,’ the medical missionaries deftly raised funds abroad, gained support from the Japanese state, gained converts, and cultivated a corps of Japanese medical practitioners.” —Sheldon Garon, Princeton University; author of Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life “Based on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, this groundbreaking book traces evangelical Christianity and the work of medical missions in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Christianity, disease, medicine, or public health in modern Japan.” —William Johnston, Wesleyan University; author of The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Buddhism in Asia was transformed by the impact of colonial modernity and new technologies and began to spread in earnest to the West. Transnational networking among Asian Buddhists and early western converts engendered pioneering attempts to develop new kinds of Buddhism for a globalized world, in ways not controlled by any single sect or region. Drawing on new research by scholars worldwide, this book brings together some of the most extraordinary episodes and personalities of a period of almost a century from 1860-1960. Examples include Indian intellectuals who saw Buddhism as a homegrown path for a modern post-colonial future, poor whites ‘going native’ as Asian monks, a Brooklyn-born monk who sought to convert Mussolini, and the failed 1950s attempt to train British monks to establish a Thai sangha in Britain. Some of these stories represent creative failures, paths not taken, which may show us alternative possibilities for a more diverse Buddhism in a world dominated by religious nationalisms. Other pioneers paved the way for the mainstreaming of new forms of Buddhism in later decades, in time for the post-1960s takeoff of ‘global Buddhism’. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Buddhism.

This new edition of Antique Trader Book Collector's Price Guide provides readers with the information and values to carve a niche for themselves in a market where rare first editions of Jane Austen's Emma and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone recently sold at auction for 254,610 dollars and 40,355 dollars respectively. Organized in 13 categories, including Americana, banned, paranormal and mystery, this guide discusses identifying and grading books, and provides collectors with details for identifying and assessing books in 8,000 listings.

Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes considers the career of the Japanese artist Yoshio Markino (1869-1956), a prominent figure on the early twentieth-century London art scene whose popular illustrations of British life adroitly blended stylistic elements of East and West. He established his reputation with watercolors for the avant-garde Studio magazine and attained success with The Colour of London (1907), the book that offered, in word and picture, his outsider’s response to the modern Edwardian metropolis. Three years later he recounted his British experiences in an admired autobiography aptly titled A Japanese Artist in London. Here, and in later publications, Markino offered a distinctively Japanese perspective on European life that won him recognition and fame in a Britain that was actively engaging with pro-Western Meiji Japan. Based on a wide range of unpublished manuscripts and Edwardian commentary, this lavishly illustrated book provides a close examination of over 150 examples of his art as well analysis of his writings in English that covered topics as wide-ranging as the English and Japanese theater, women’s suffrage, current events in the Far East and observations on traditional Asian art as well as Western Post-Impressionism. Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes, the first scholarly study of this neglected artist, demonstrates how Markino became an agent of cross-cultural understanding whose beautiful and accessible work provided fresh insights into the Anglo-Japanese relationship during the early years of the twentieth century.

This book examines the two-way bridge-building cultural exchange which took place between Japan and Britain in the years after 1859 and into the early years of the twentieth century.

Photography in Japan 1853-1912 is a fascinating visual record of Japanese culture during its metamorphosis from a feudal society to a modern, industrial nation at a time when the art of photography was still in its infancy. The 350 rare and antique photos in this book, most of them published here for the first time, chronicle the introduction of photography in Japan and early Japanese photography. The images are more than just a history of photography in Japan; they are vital in helping to understand the dramatic changes that occurred in Japan during the mid-nineteenth century. These rare Japanese photographs--whether sensational or everyday, intimate or panoramic--document a nation about to abandon its traditional ways and enter the modern era. Taken between 1853 and 1912 by the most important Japanese and foreign photographers working in Japan, this is the first book to document the history of early photography in Japan a comprehensive and systematic way.