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

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 h...