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Breaking Barriers : Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan / Constantine Nomikos Vaporis.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Vaporis, Constantine Nomikos, 1957- author.
- Series:
- Harvard East Asian monographs ; 163.
- Harvard University Asia Center E-Book Collection ISBN: 9789004407077.
- Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 163
- Harvard University Asia Center E-Book Collection
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Transportation and state--Japan--History.
- Transportation and state.
- Transportation--Japan--History.
- Transportation.
- Travel restrictions.
- History.
- Japan.
- Travel restrictions--Japan--History.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource.
- Other Title:
- Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan
- Place of Publication:
- Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 1994.
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- Travel in Tokugawa Japan was officially controlled by bakufu and domainal authorities via an elaborate system of barriers, or sekisho, and travel permits; commoners, however, found ways to circumvent these barriers, frequently ignoring the laws designed to control their mobility. In this study, Constantine Vaporis challenges the notion that this system of travel regulations prevented widespread travel, maintaining instead that a "culture of movement" in Japan developed in the Tokugawa era. Using a combination of governmental documentation and travel literature, diaries, and wood-block prints, Vaporis examines the development of travel as recreation; he discusses the impact of pilgrimage and the institutionalization of alms-giving on the freedom of movement commoners enjoyed. By the end of the Tokugawa era, the popular nature of travel and a sophisticated system of roads were well established: Vaporis explores the reluctance of the bakufu to enforce its travel laws, and in doing so, beautifully evokes the character of the journey through Tokugawa Japan.
- Contents:
- Preliminary Material
- Introduction
- The Arms and Legs of the Realm
- The Social Organization of the Gokaidō Network
- A Curious Institution
- Permits and Passages
- The Benevolence of the Realm
- Travel as Recreation
- Conclusion
- Overview of Tōkaidō Post Stations (1843)
- Notes
- List of Works Cited
- Index
- Harvard East Asian Monographs.
- Notes:
- Description based on print version record.
- Other Format:
- Print version: Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan,
- ISBN:
- 9781684173037
- 9780674081079
- OCLC:
- 655174989
- Publisher Number:
- 10.1163/9781684173037 DOI
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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