ENGLISH

The Making of a Japanese Periphery, 1750-1920

By Karen Wigen

Book information

Publisher
University of California Press
Year
2020
ISBN
9780520914360
DOI
10.1525/9780520914360
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
27 MB (28542701 bytes)
Series
Twentieth Century Japan: The Emergence of a World Power; 3
Edition
Reprint 2019
Pages
356\351
Library
degruyter.com
Time added
2023-08-21 16:27:13

Description

Contending that Japan's industrial and imperial revolutions were also geographical revolutions, Kären Wigen's interdisciplinary study analyzes the changing spatial order of the countryside in early modern Japan. Her focus, the Ina Valley, served as a gateway to the mountainous interior of central Japan. Using methods drawn from historical geography and economic development, Wigen maps the valley's changes—from a region of small settlements linked in an autonomous economic zone, to its transformation into a peripheral part of the global silk trade, dependent on the state. Yet the processes that brought these changes—industrial growth and political centralization—were crucial to Japan's rise to imperial power. Wigen's elucidation of this makes her book compelling reading for a broad audience.

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