Book ID: CBB411079431

The Merchant's Tale: Yokohama and the Transformation of Japan (2019)

unapi

Partner, Simon (Author)


Columbia University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 291
Language: English

In April 1859, at age fifty, Shinohara Chūemon left his old life behind. Chūemon, a well-off farmer in his home village, departed for the new port city of Yokohama, where he remained for the next fourteen years. There, as a merchant trading with foreigners in the aftermath of Japan's 1853 "opening" to the West, he witnessed the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, the civil war that followed, and the Meiji Restoration's reforms. This book looks through Chūemon's eyes at the upheavals of this period, using the story of an ordinary merchant farmer and its Yokohama setting as a vantage point onto sweeping social transformation and its unwitting agents. In a narrative history rich in colorful detail, Simon Partner focuses on Japan's common people to investigate the relationship between individual motivation and social change. Chūemon, like most newcomers to Yokohama, came in search of economic opportunity. Partner explores how he and other mundane actors in Yokohama's daily life shed light on vital issues in Japan's modern history, including the legacies of the Meiji Restoration; the nature of the East Asian treaty port system; and the importance of regimes of daily life such as food, clothing, medicine, and hygiene in the negotiation of national identity. Though centered on the experiences of an individual, The Merchant's Tale is also the history of a place. Created under pressure from aggressive foreign powers, Yokohama was the scene of gunboat diplomacy, the birthplace of new lifestyles, a connection to global markets, and the beachhead of Japan's technological modernization.

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Reviewed By

Review Catherine L. Phipps (Spring 2019) Review of "The Merchant's Tale: Yokohama and the Transformation of Japan". Business History Review (pp. 204-206). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB411079431/

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Authors & Contributors
Fanny Bessard
Appelbaum, Binyamin
Erik Grimmer-Solem
Bishara, Fahad Ahmad
Boris Deschanel
Iversen, Torben
Concepts
Economic history
Business history
Politics and government
Merchants
Capitalism
Business and commerce
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
18th century
17th century
21st century
16th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
France
Europe
Saint-Malo
Antwerp
Institutions
International Monetary Fund
J.C. Penney Co.
Chance Brothers and Company
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