1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910787910203321

Autore

Kowner Rotem

Titolo

From white to yellow : the Japanese in European racial thought, 1300-1735 / / Rotem Kowner

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Montréal, Québec : , : McGill-Queen's University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-7735-4455-0

0-7735-9684-4

0-7735-9683-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xxv, 678 pages) : illustrations

Collana

McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas ; ; 63

Disciplina

305.8956

Soggetti

Race - Social aspects - Europe - History

Public opinion - Europe - History

Japan Foreign public opinion, European History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Phase One. Speculation : Pre-Encounter Knowledge of the Japanese (1300-1543). 1. The emergence of "Cipangu" and its precursory ethnography ; 2. The "Cipanguese" at the opening of the age of discovery --

Phase Two. Observation : A Burgeoning Discourse of Initial Encounters (1543-1640). 3. Initial observations of the Japanese ; 4. The Japanese position in contemporary hierarchies ; 5. Concrete mirrors of a new human order ; 6. "Race" and its cognitive limits during the phase of observation --

Phase Three. Reconsideration : Antecendents of a Mature Discourse (1640-1735). 7. Dutch reappraisal of the Japanese body and origins ; 8. Power, status, and the Japanese position in the global order ; 9. In search of a new taxonomy : botany, medicine, and the Japanese ; 10. "Race" and its perceptual limits during the phase of reconsideration -- Conclusion : The discourse of race in early modern Europe and the Japanese case.

Sommario/riassunto

When Europeans landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions



did not endure. Gradually the Europeans' positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. This book traces racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.