Tokyo: A Cultural History Book

Tokyo: A Cultural History (2009) by Stephen Mansfeild is fascinating look at one of the most interesting cities in the world. Mansfield uses a variety of sources to chart the history of the world's biggest city. These sources range from obscure foreign travelers like Isabella Bird to more established critics and historians like Ian Buruma, Donald Richie, Edward Seidensticker to famous Japanese literary figures like Junichiro Tanizaki, Kafu Nagai, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima and famous foreign literary figures who have written about, traveled through or lived in the great city like Angela Carter, David Mitchell, William Gibson and more. The topics range from woodblock art to tattoos, architecture, geisha, city parks, poetry, and natural disasters. It seems much of the citys history was concentrated in shitamachi, the low city, where the pleasure quarters of Yoshiwara resided for so many years before being shut down in the 60s for the Olympics to the former entertainment district of Asaskusa. I plan to read a Nagai book based on the descriptions of his writings in this volume. There was a section in Chapter Six about Kiyosumi-teien that inspired a visit there. And I was inspired by Chapter Seven's "Upheaval and Millenarian Beliefs" to search out Shohei Imamaura's film version of the events of the Ejanaika movement where delirious mobs paraded Shinto images through the streets shouting quasi-religious slogans indulging in bouts of eating and drunkeness, wearing costumes, cross-dressing and openly having sex in alleyways. The discussion of the city carries on up to present day Tokyo. It has inspired me to search out other books on the subject like Donald Riche's Tokyo Megacity and Edward Seidensticker's two books Low City, High City and Tokyo Rising.