Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period

A quiet revolution in knowledge separated the early modern period in Japan from all previous time. After 1600, self—appointed investigators used the model of the land and cartographic surveys of the newly unified state to observe and order subjects such as agronomy, medicine, gastronomy, commerce, travel, and entertainment. They subsequently circulated their findings through a variety of commercially printed texts: maps, gazetteers, family encyclopedias, urban directories, travel guides, of...