This edition makes available once again Thunberg’s extraordinary writings on Japan, complete with illustrations, a full introduction and annotations. Carl Peter Thunberg, pupil and successor of Linnaeus – of the great fathers of modern science – spent eighteen fascinating months in the notoriously inaccessible Japan in 1775-1776, and this is his story. Thunberg studied at Uppsala University in Sweden where he was a favourite student of the great Linnaeus, father of modern scientific classification. He determined to travel the world and enlisted as a physician with the Dutch East India Company. He arrived in Japan in the summer of 1775 and stayed for eighteen months. He observed Japan widely, and travelled to Edo (modern Tokyo) where he became friends with the shogun’s private physician, Katsuragawa Hoshû, a fine Scholar and a notorious rake. They maintained a correspondence even after Thunberg had returned to his homeland. Thunberg’s ‘Travels’ appeared in English in 1795 and until now has never been reprinted. Fully annotated and introduced by Timon Screech.

Product Description: The British Museum's collection of Japanese coins is one of the best outside Japan. Many of the coins were originally in the collection of Japan's renowned numismatist and collector, Kutsuki Masatsuna (1750-1802), and were acquired by the British Museum in the 1880s...read more

This text offers an assessment of the genre of Japanese paintings and prints today known as shunga. Changes in Japanese law have at last enabled erotic images to be published without fear of prosecution, and many books have since appeared in Japan. In this book, the author aims to situate the imagery within the contexts of sexuality, gender or power. Questions of aesthetics and of whether shunga deserve a place in the official history of Japanese art, have dominated and the question of the use of the images has been avoided. Screech seeks to re-establish shunga in its proper historical contexts of culture and creativity.

Product Description: This study of eighteenth century Japan, using sources wholly unstudied since their writing, reveals the profound influence that the introduction of Western technology and scientific instruments (including glass, lenses, and mirrors) had on Japanese notions of sight, and how this change in perception was reflected clearly in popular culture...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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