Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 8, 2005 21:58:03 GMT -5
I was in Kinokuniya in San Francisco recently wondering what a book on Cornwallis' defeat at the Battle of Yorktown was doing among volumes on Japanese history. So I pulled it down off the shelf.
"The World Turned Upside Down" by Pierre Francois Souyri (Kathe Roth, translator), is in fact, a scholarly book on medieval Japan, from the events leading up to the Genpei Wars and into the Kamakura period up to Sekigahara. I admit that most of my reading so far had dealt with the Heian period and I was happy to drop $20 on this and fill in some knowledge gaps.
Souyri fits a lot of information into this seemingly slim paperback. From politics to economic conditions to what hot summers do to rice crops to the cultural impact of blind monks singing the "Tales of the Heike" at the side of the road, this is a good overview of a big chunk of the SCA period. It did what I bought it to do - taught me more about who was doing what when, and of course, will probably have me haring off looking for more stuff to read as I wade through the footnotes and bibliography.
Link to publication on Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231118430/qid=1110335952/sr=8-9/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i9_xgl14/002-0369942-3696062?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
M.
"The World Turned Upside Down" by Pierre Francois Souyri (Kathe Roth, translator), is in fact, a scholarly book on medieval Japan, from the events leading up to the Genpei Wars and into the Kamakura period up to Sekigahara. I admit that most of my reading so far had dealt with the Heian period and I was happy to drop $20 on this and fill in some knowledge gaps.
Souyri fits a lot of information into this seemingly slim paperback. From politics to economic conditions to what hot summers do to rice crops to the cultural impact of blind monks singing the "Tales of the Heike" at the side of the road, this is a good overview of a big chunk of the SCA period. It did what I bought it to do - taught me more about who was doing what when, and of course, will probably have me haring off looking for more stuff to read as I wade through the footnotes and bibliography.
Link to publication on Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231118430/qid=1110335952/sr=8-9/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i9_xgl14/002-0369942-3696062?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
M.