Old Tokyo (Images of Asia)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: April 15, 2002
Language: eng
Number of pages: 112
ISBN-13: 9780195930863
First sentence: EDO LITERALLY MEANT 'door to the bay', which suggests that the Hibiya inlet, or Tokyo Bay as it called today, might once have penetrated more deeply into the centre of the city (Plate 1).
Description: "On 1 September 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck Tokyo and destroyed much of the city and the vestiges of its cultural heritage. Nothing like it had occurred since the Great Ansei Earthquake in 1855 which, although it did not destroy the city on such a great scale, had set in motion the events through which the ancient capital of Edo evolved into the early modern city of Tokyo." "Using these events as a unique frame, Old Tokyo reconstructs the city as it was between 1855 and 1923, when rapid changes to its architecture, political structure, and cultural and family values led Japan's transition from its isolated feudal age to its birth as a major participant in world affairs. We meet the moga and mobo, the trendsetting 'modern girls' and 'modern boys' who shunned traditional Japanese attire for their version of Western dress; witness the creation of hybrid Japanese-Western dishes such as 'civilization pot' in the late nineteenth century; see the introduction of the rickshaw; mourn the deaths of emperors and shoguns with the rest of Tokyo; view the architectural masterpieces of such celebrated architects as Josiah Conder and Frank Lloyd Wright; and marvel at the continuously changing cityscape." "Old Tokyo weaves together the city's political and cultural history, including many little-known facts and anecdotes. It brings together over forty rare maps, photographs, and paintings, many of them never before published."--BOOK JACKET.