Science and culture in traditional Japan / Masayoshi Sugimoto and David L. Swain.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sugimoto, Masayoshi, 1928- author.

Swain, David L., 1927- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Japan--History.

Science.

Japan--Civilization--To 1868.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (537 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

First Tuttle edition.

Other Title:

Science & culture in traditional Japan.

Place of Publication:

Rutland, Vermont ; Tokyo, Japan : Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1989.

Summary:

This book of Japanese history explores the development of science and technology in traditional Japanese society. It may be surprising to some readers familiar with the history of Japan that that scientific thought existed at all in traditional Japan. However, Science and Culture in Traditional Japan show the development of premodern science in Japan in the context of that country's social and intellectual milieu. Anyone who wishes to understand the development of Japan's science and technology over the last hundred years will appreciate this history of the centuries that preceded modernization, for it is the story of why and how Japan was ready and, more importantly, able to make the leap from Eastern to Western science. The history and culture book shows how Japan's long pattern of assimilation--in advancing and receding waves--of Chinese science (and some Western science) laid the foundation for an appreciation of the need for and value of the "new" Western knowledge.

Contents:

Frontcover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Tables

Foreword

Introduction

Map of East Asia during Chinese Cultural Wave I

Map of japan during Chinese Cultural Wave II

1. Science in japan's First Cultural Transformation

Chinese Cultural Wave I: ca. 600-894

Learning in Chinese Wave I

Science in Chinese Wave II

2. Five Centuries of Indigenous Development

The Semiseclusion Era: 894-1401

Learning

The Specific Sciences

3. Pressures toward Modern Society

Early Chinese Cultural Wave II: 1401-1639

Western Cultural Wave I: 1543-1639

Transitions in Japanese Culture

Techniques Strategic to Modernizing Processes

Learning in the Transitional Period

The Sciences in Transition

4. The Seventeenth-Century Intellectual Outburst

National Isolation and the Peak of Chinese Cultural

Wave II: 1639-1720

Learning in the Seventeenth Century

The Sciences

5. The Shift from Traditional to Modern Science

Challenge to Isolation: 1720-1854

Developments in the Sciences

Aftermath of Chinese Wave II and Western Wave II

Appendix: Chronological Charts

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-4629-1813-1

OCLC:

950904484