Earthquake nation : the cultural politics of Japanese seismicity, 1868-1930 / Gregory Clancey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clancey, Gregory K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Earthquakes--Japan--Psychological aspects.

Earthquakes.

Earthquakes--Social aspects--Japan.

Japan--Civilization--1868-1945.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (346 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Accelerating seismic activity in late Meiji Japan climaxed in the legendary Great Nobi Earthquake of 1891, which rocked the main island from Tokyo to Osaka, killing thousands. Ironically, the earthquake brought down many "modern" structures built on the advice of foreign architects and engineers, while leaving certain traditional, wooden ones standing. This book, the first English-language history of modern Japanese earthquakes and earthquake science, considers the cultural and political ramifications of this and other catastrophic events on Japan's relationship with the West, with modern science, and with itself. Gregory Clancey argues that seismicity was both the Achilles' heel of Japan's nation-building project-revealing the state's western-style infrastructure to be surprisingly fragile-and a new focus for nativizing discourses which credited traditional Japanese architecture with unique abilities to ride out seismic waves. Tracing his subject from the Meiji Restoration to the Great Kant Earthquake of 1923 (which destroyed Tokyo), Clancey shows earthquakes to have been a continual though mercurial agent in Japan's self-fashioning; a catastrophic undercurrent to Japanese modernity. This innovative and absorbing study not only moves earthquakes nearer the center of modern Japan change-both materially and symbolically-but shows how fundamentally Japan shaped the global art, science, and culture of natural disaster.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction

1. Strong Nation, Stone Nation

2. Earthquakes

3. The Seismologists

4. The National Essence

5. A Great Earthquake

6. Japan as Earthquake Nation

7. Japanese Architecture after Nōbi

8. The Great Kantō Earthquake and the Submergence of the Earthquake Nation

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612358876

9781282358874

1282358871

9781423766643

1423766644

9780520932296

0520932293

9781598759457

1598759450

OCLC:

475970644