Everyday Things in Premodern Japan: The Hidden Legacy of Material Culture

Whereas material culture is often addressed from the viewpoint of cultural history, raising issues of meaning and values associated with Japan's entry into modernity, Susan Hanley is mostly interested in questions of economic history, although her treatment and interpretation of archival data differs from the approach usually followed by economic scholars. Her core hypothesis is that the study of material culture, defined as the physical objects that people use or consume in their everyday lives and the spaces they inhabit, reveals the patterns and characteristics of domestic consumption, which in turn determines the physical well-being of the population, which gives an idea of the quality of the lives they live. A study of material culture during Japan's Tokugawa period through its material culture raises two paradoxes. First, Marxist economic historians have divided the Tokugawa period into two: rapid growth of both the economy and population in the seventeenth century, followed by stagnation in both economy and demography for the next century and a half. However, viewed from the vantage of material culture, the Japanese continued to grow more prosperous in the second half of the Tokugawa period, though the growth and rate of change were not as rapid as in the first half. Demographic studies initiated by Akira Hayami, the leading authority in historical demography in Japan, suggest that a major reason for the leveling off of population's growth in much of the country was deliberate efforts by the Japanese to control family size in order to maintain or improve their standard of living. Having a large household burdened a cultivator with extra mouths to feed and labor that could not be effectively used. Through the ie system, the Japanese began to practice what was ideally primogeniture but in actual fact could be more correctly described as single-heir inheritance. Adoption was commonly practiced, and thus a family could limit the number of children without endangering the line. All children who were not to carry on the family line had to leave the family. Girls usually married out, and younger sons either were adopted into other families or left home to make their fortune elsewhere. Late marriages, abortion and infanticides were other means to control family size. What is remarkable is that people were limiting their families even in villages in which people were relatively well off and in times in which the economy was expanding. Distribution patterns also show interesting trends. While the income of the samurai--who constituted no more than 7 to 10 percent of the population--either held steady or deteriorated, most of the rest of the Japanese enjoyed a rising standard of living. What happened is that many commoners, first merchants and city dwellers, then peasants and villagers, started to enjoy what previously only the elite among the samurai had consumed: tatami in place of earthen or wooden floor, cotton clothing and bedding, more spaci

To be clear - I love this book. The daily minutiae of Japanese social history is fascinating and clearly well researched. It covers the history of food, clothing, furnishing, home architecture, sanitation and so on in fascinating detail. However there are two structural problems that get in the way of the more casual reader. Firstly, there is an assumed knowledge of the flow of Japanese history over the last few hundred years. It would be great if the author could at least include an overview chapter of significant periods and major social movements, or a timeline, for reference. Secondly, some material could be gathered together more consistently, for example information about clothing is scattered somewhat haphazardly throughout the book.

When a bought the book I was looking for a historical introductory work on Japanese culture and how it reflected in people leaving, utensils and homes. In summary, an accessible book for someone with a superficial knowledge with of Japanese history and culture. Instead, I found a historical essay on the life of the Japanese during the Edo or Tokugawa period (1863-67/68). Not what I expected, though I fully enjoyed it and I learn a lot. I will not recommend the book to the occasional reader or to someone who wants to introduce himself to Japanese culture. In the latter case (my case), I believe it could be a fruitful reading after some background has been acquired.

I purchased this book both for pleasure reading and research. I was pleased in both respects. If you can ignore her nearly non-stop war cry of "Pre-modern Japan's physical well-being was awesometastic!" then you'll get a lot from this book. I would recommend it for research and casual reading (though maybe not as heartily for the latter). Enjoy!

Despite its popular-sounding title, this is a serious scholarly examination of the life of the Japanese during the Edo or Tokugawa period (1863-67/68), focusing on the society's material culture in order to gauge the people's physical well-being relative to that of people in the West. We learn that the premodern Japanese were in numerous ways on a level comparable, and in many ways superior, to Westerners, as in their mortality rates, sanitation, water and sewage facilities, cleanliness, diet, living conditions, and clothing. Hanley's scholarship in Japanese and English sources is impeccable and uses many statistical studies to support her arguments. The closing chapters of the book demonstrate how life in Tokugawa Japan prepared the nation for the remarkably rapid industrialization of the Meiji period and later, yet also makes perceptive comments on how adherence to premodern practices eventually hurt Japan as it grew to superpower status in the postwar years. Hanley's writing is clear and accessible, and the information she provides is often eye-opening. The facts regarding premodern Japan are fascinating enough, but just as compelling are those provided for Europe and America at the same time. These demonstrate with striking clarity the many ways in which Western societies during the years covered by this book were far less healthsome than we would like to think. Charles J. Dunn's classic Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, written for a more general audience, touches on some of the same material as Hanley's book but is more wide-ranging and unburdened by scholarly apparatus; Hanley's study, however, sets out to test an historical hypothesis, resulting in a more polemical approach than Dunn's. Its major drawback is the lack of a bibliography, forcing the reader to consult her many footnotes for useful sources. But it is definitely essential reading for those interested in premodern Japan's material culture and its implications.