Unbeaten Tracks In Japan Volume 2

Unbeaten Tracks contains fascinating observational anecdotes of nineteenth-century Japan. This volume continues the journey, including experiences of tribal living.

In the late 19th century, Isabella Lucy Bird, a well-traveled Englishwoman, journeyed to northern Japan and explored the remote regions of Hokkaido on horseback. This book is her account of that journey, including descriptions of the aboriginal Ainu people and the Shinto shrines of Nikkô and Isé. The book is a fascinating glimpse into a Japan that is now largely lost to history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The intrepid explorer recounts her 1878 excursion into the back country of the Far East. Bird describes the vicissitudes of her journey — the difficulties as well as the excitement and rewards.

Volume 2 of Mrs. Bishop's Journeys concludes the adventure through Kurdistan, containing a passion for travelling that belies it difficulties.

The English writer Mrs. Bishop (aka Isabella L. Bird) was a household name in the 19th century, and one of the great female explorers of all time. This book is a fascinating chronicle of her travels in Japan, which at the time had only just opened its gates to the outside world.

This classic travel book details Isabella Bird's 1878 trip, where she set out alone to explore the interior of Japan--a rarity not only because of Bird's gender but because the country was virtually unknown to Westerners. The Japan she describes is not the sentimental world of Madame Butterfly but a vibrant land of real people with a complex culture and hard scrabble lives. Illustrations.

How did ordinary people experience Japan's modern transformation? What role did people in local areas play in the making of modern Japan? How do studies of local politics help explain national events? The dominant account of modern Japanese history focuses on the nation-building that brought Japan into the modern world. After centuries of isolation, American warships forced Japan to open its doors to the West and a group of tough new leaders transformed the country into one of the great military and economic powers of the world. But different perspectives need to be examined. Alternative Narratives introduces other actors, other places and other dimensions of social and political activity in an attempt to construct a broader and more complex account of modern Japanese history. Focusing on the initial years of Japan's modern transformation, from the 1850s to the 1890s, Steele explores responses of commoners to the arrival of American warships in 1853; the growth of popular political consciousness; reactions of the residents of Edo in 1868 on the deposition of the shogun; responses of the village elite to the fall of the old regime; and established frameworks of historical narration - including American attempts to understand Japan's 1868 civil war. The author draws upon a wealth of documents, including broadsheets, woodblock prints, political cartoons and local campaign literature, as well as more conventional material in an endeavour to find new and different ways to examine the past. This book forms an important resource to students of Japanese history and culture while simultaneously appealing to scholars interested in the general problem of history and history-writing.