Lust, Commerce, and Corruption
Subtitle: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 496
ISBN-13: 9780231166447
Subjects: Japan, social conditions; Japan, social life and customs; Social classes, japan; Japan, economic conditions
Description: By 1816, Japan had recovered from the famines of the 1780s and moved beyond the political reforms of the 1790s. Despite persistent economic and social stresses, the country seemed to be approaching a new period of growth. The idea that the shogunate would not last forever was far from anyone's mind. Yet, in that year, an anonymous samurai author completed one of the most detailed critiques of Edo society known today. Buyō shows a familiarity with many corners of Edo life that one might not expect in a samurai.