Servant of the Shogun
Author | : Richard Tames |
Publisher | : RoutledgeCurzon |
Total Pages | : 132 |
Release | : 1995-01-17 |
Genre | : Social Science |
ISBN | : 9780904404395 |
Servants of the Dynasty
Author | : Anne Walthall |
Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
Total Pages | : 398 |
Release | : 2008-06-10 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0520941519 |
Mothers, wives, concubines, entertainers, attendants, officials, maids, drudges. By offering the first comparative view of the women who lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe, this work opens a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history. Written by leading historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, these lively essays take us from Mayan states to twentieth-century Benin in Nigeria, to the palace of Japanese Shoguns, the Chinese Imperial courts, eighteenth-century Versailles, Mughal India, and beyond. Together they investigate how women's roles differed, how their roles changed over time, and how their histories can illuminate the structures of power and societies in which they lived. This work also furthers our understanding of how royal courts, created to project the authority of male rulers, maintained themselves through the reproductive and productive powers of women.
African Samurai
Author | : Thomas Lockley |
Publisher | : Harlequin |
Total Pages | : 518 |
Release | : 2019-04-30 |
Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | : 1488098751 |
This biography of the first foreign-born samurai and his journey from Africa to Japan is “a readable, compassionate account of an extraordinary life” (The Washington Post). When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society. In the four hundred years since, Yasuke has been known in Japan largely as a legendary, perhaps mythical figure. Now African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the sixteenth century, one whose travels between countries and cultures offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan. “Fast-paced, action-packed writing. . . . A new and important biography and an incredibly moving study of medieval Japan and solid perspective on its unification. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Eminently readable. . . . a worthwhile and entertaining work.” —Publishers Weekly “A unique story of a unique man, and yet someone with whom we can all identify.” —Jack Weatherford, New York Times–bestselling author of Genghis Khan
Servants of the Dynasty
Author | : Anne Walthall |
Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
Total Pages | : 796 |
Release | : 2008 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0520254449 |
This book offers a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history, by offering a comparative view of the women who lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe. The authors of this volume, historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, investigate women's roles in each era and locale, how those roles changed over time, and what women's histories say about the structures of power and the societies in which they lived. The authors take us to palaces in Early modern Southeast Asia, classic Maya royal courts, the Byzantine court, the harem of the Ottoman royal court, the Mughal palace, an African royal harem, the courts of Chinese Emperors and Empresses, the palace of the Shogun, the court of Versailles, Aztec palaces, and a Korean court.
Stranger in the Shogun's City
Author | : Amy Stanley |
Publisher | : Simon and Schuster |
Total Pages | : 352 |
Release | : 2020-07-14 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1501188542 |
*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).
The Revenge of the Forty-Seven Samurai
Author | : Erik Christian Haugaard |
Publisher | : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
Total Pages | : 244 |
Release | : 1995 |
Genre | : Juvenile Fiction |
ISBN | : 9780618548965 |
A fourteen-year-old serving boy finds himself surrounded by suspicion and betrayal as his master gathers a group of samurai to avenge Lord Asano's death.