They Came To Japan an Anthology Of Review

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(More customer reviews)"They [the Japanese] have rites and ceremonies so different from those of all other nations that it seems that they deliberately try to be unlike any other people. The things they do in this respect are beyond imagining and it may truly be said that Japan is a world the reverse of Europe."
-- Alessandro Valignano, S.J., in the late 1500's
This quality piece of work from the University of Califonia / Center for Japanese and Korean Studies is meticulously assembled by Cooper. It contains the letters, diaries, and other writings of the Europeans who visited Japan during the 16th and 17th centuries -- before the era of Japanese isolation from the Western World. Cooper organizes the material by topic rather than by chronology which proves revealing.
The Europeans have opinions and observations "on many aspects of Japanese life -- architecture, etiquette, the tea ceremony, dress, food, housing, weapons, art, literature, Buddhism and Shinto, to name a few -- and the observers are allowed to speak for themselves. Their accounts, many of which have not been published before in English, illuminate European-Japanese relations in that period and include scenes of dramatic intensity as well as frequent touches of humor."
Handsome book: hardback, cloth over boards in green with gold details; dustjacket. (Cover image is of some rather confused-looking European "barbarians" taken from a 17th century Japanese screen.) 439 pp on nice stock. Preface, decorated endpapers, Notes on the Authors, Index. Narrative and bibliographic notes at the end of each chapter; 15 page Bibliography.


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