Lust, Commerce, and Corruption

Lust, Commerce, and Corruption

Author: Mark Teeuwen

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-03-28

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0231544359

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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 headed for 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 produced a scathing critique of Edo society. Writing as Buyo Inshi, "a retired gentleman of Edo," he expressed in An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard a profound despair with the state of the realm. Seeing decay wherever he turned, Buyo feared the world would soon descend into war. In his anecdotes, Buyo shows a sometimes surprising familiarity with the shadier aspects of Edo life. He speaks of the corruption of samurai officials; the suffering of the poor in villages and cities; the operation of brothels; the dealings of blind moneylenders; the selling and buying of temple abbotships; and the dubious strategies seen in law courts. Perhaps it was the frankness of his account that made him prefer to stay anonymous. A team of Edo specialists undertook the original translation of Buyo's work. This abridged edition streamlines this translation for classroom use, preserving the scope and emphasis of Buyo's argument while eliminating repetitions and diversions. It also retains the introductory essay that situates the work within Edo society and history.


Lust, Commerce, and Corruption

Lust, Commerce, and Corruption

Author: Buyō Inshi

Publisher: Translations from the Asian Classics

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9780231182775

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This volume contains a full translation of Buyo's often-quoted but rarely studied work by a team of specialists on Edo society. Together with extensive annotation of the translation, the volume includes an introduction that situates the text culturally and historically.


Early Modern Japan

Early Modern Japan

Author: Conrad Totman

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1995-08

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 0520203569

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A survey of Japan's early modern period (1568-1868) that blends political, economic, intellectual, literary, and cultural history. It also introduces a fresh ecological perspective, covering natural disasters, resource use, demographics, and river control.


Strange Justice

Strange Justice

Author: Jane Mayer

Publisher: Graymalkin Media

Published: 2018-05-09

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 163168163X

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Now a New York Times Best Seller and a National Book Award finalist. Charged with racial, sexual, and political overtones, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was one of the most divisive spectacles the country has ever seen. Anita Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment by Thomas, and the attacks on her that were part of his high-placed supporters’ rebuttal, both shocked the nation and split it into two camps. One believed Hill was lying, the other believed that the man who ultimately took his place on the Supreme Court had committed perjury. In this brilliant, often shocking book, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, two of the nation’s top investigative journalists examine all aspects of this controversial case. They interview witnesses that the Judiciary Committee chose not to call, and present documents never before made public. They detail the personal and professional pasts of both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill and lay bare a campaign of lobbying, public relations, and character assassination fueled by conservative power at its most desperate. A gripping high-stakes drama, Strange Justice is not only a definitive account of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings, but is also a classic casebook of how the Washington game is played by those for whom winning is everything.


Thirsty Dragon

Thirsty Dragon

Author: Suzanne Mustacich

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2015-11-10

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 162779087X

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An inside view of China's quest to become a global wine power and Bordeaux's attempt to master the thirsty dragon it helped create The wine merchants of Bordeaux and the rising entrepreneurs of China would seem to have little in common—Old Europe versus New China, tradition versus disruption, loyalty versus efficiency. And yet these two communities have found their destinies intertwined in the conquest of new markets, as Suzanne Mustacich shows in this provocative account of how China is reshaping the French wine business and how Bordeaux is making its mark on China. Thirsty Dragon lays bare the untold story of how an influx of Chinese money rescued France's most venerable wine region from economic collapse, and how the result was a series of misunderstandings and crises that threatened the delicate infrastructure of Bordeaux's insular wine trade. The Bordelais and the Chinese do business according to different and often incompatible sets of rules, and Mustacich uncovers the competing agendas and little-known actors who are transforming the economics and culture of Bordeaux, even as its wines are finding new markets—and ever higher prices—in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong, with Hong Kong and London traders playing a pivotal role. At once a tale of business skullduggery and fierce cultural clashes, adventure, and ambition, Thirsty Dragon offers a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges facing the world's most famous and prestigious wines.


What's in It for Me?

What's in It for Me?

Author: Joesph Stedino

Publisher: HarperPrism

Published: 1993-08

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9780061099847

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The astonishing behind-the-scenes story of how sex, drugs, gambling, and greed govern Arizona politics. Ex-wise guy Joe Stedino posed as a mobster willing to buy votes to legalize gambling. Cameras recorded every bribe as one politician after another lined up for palm greasing. Now Stedino tells the story behind the eventual 20 indictments. Photo insert.


Stranger in the Shogun's City

Stranger in the Shogun's City

Author: Amy Stanley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1501188542

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*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).


Utopia

Utopia

Author: Thomas More

Publisher: e-artnow

Published: 2019-04-08

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 8027303583

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Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.


Voices of Early Modern Japan

Voices of Early Modern Japan

Author: Constantine Nomikos Vaporis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-27

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1000280950

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In this newly revised and updated 2nd edition of Voices of Early Modern Japan, Constantine Nomikos Vaporis offers an accessible collection of annotated historical documents of an extraordinary period in Japanese history, ranging from the unification of warring states under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the early seventeenth century to the overthrow of the shogunate just after the opening of Japan by the West in the mid- nineteenth century. Through close examination of primary sources from "The Great Peace," this fascinating textbook offers fresh insights into the Tokugawa era: its political institutions, rigid class hierarchy, artistic and material culture, religious life, and more, demonstrating what historians can uncover from the words of ordinary people. New features include: • An expanded section on religion, morality and ethics; • A new selection of maps and visual documents; • Sources from government documents and household records to diaries and personal correspondence, translated and examined in light of the latest scholarship; • Updated references for student projects and research assignments. The first edition of Voices of Early Modern Japan was the winner of the 2013 Franklin R. Buchanan Prize for Curricular Materials. This fully revised textbook will prove a comprehensive resource for teachers and students of East Asian Studies, history, culture, and anthropology.


Vice, Crime, and Poverty

Vice, Crime, and Poverty

Author: Dominique Kalifa

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0231547269

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Beggars, outcasts, urchins, waifs, prostitutes, criminals, convicts, madmen, fallen women, lunatics, degenerates—part reality, part fantasy, these are the grotesque faces that populate the underworld, the dark inverse of our everyday world. Lurking in the mirror that we hold up to our society, they are our counterparts and our doubles, repelling us and yet offering the tantalizing promise of escape. Although these images testify to undeniable social realities, the sordid lower depths make up a symbolic and social imaginary that reflects our fears and anxieties—as well as our desires. In Vice, Crime, and Poverty, Dominique Kalifa traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. He examines how the myth of the lower depths came into being in nineteenth-century Europe, as biblical figures and Christian traditions were adapted for a world turned upside-down by the era of industrialization, democratization, and mass culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience. While the social conditions that created that underworld have changed, Vice, Crime, and Poverty shows that, from social-scientific ideas of the underclass to contemporary cinema and steampunk culture, its shadows continue to haunt us.