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xiii At the beginning of this project, I knew little of the hypnotic power of documents and databases. I also had no notion of the many debts I would incur. It is a pleasure to acknowledge some of them here. During my doctoral years at Harvard, Andrew Gordon formed my sensibilities, catalyzed my ideas, and encouraged my conceptual ambitions. Henrietta Harrison energized me in long conversations and has improved this book at every level with her clear-eyed advice. Over many sunlit mornings in her office at MIT, Anne McCants tutored me in demographic history and later helped me formulate some of the key insights of this book. Throughout, she has been a role model of professional generosity. Dani Botsman has shaped this project from beginning to end with his gift for constructive criticism, first as a member of my dissertation committee and more recently as my senior colleague at Yale. Early on, a conversation in his office helped me set the project’s parameters, and the structure of this book owes much to his incisive rethinking of the purely thematic chapters of the dissertation. During my research in Japan, Kawaguchi Hiroshi and his colleagues hosted me at Tezukayama University. His high standards of critical thinking have long since turned into an inner dialogue for me: “Would this convince Kawaguchi-sensei?” That I devote half an appendix to sampling issues is one of many reflections of his influence. Kurosu Satomi gave important assistance especially during the early stages of this project, and her work on the Own-Children Method has been an inspiration for my own efforts. Ochiai Emiko defined a central concern of this book by positing an Edo-period “reproductive revolution” and offered invaluable support in person. Hayami Akira and Narimatsu Saeko, without whose pioneering ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS publications I could not even have posed my initial research questions, welcomed me to their Shinjuku office and loaned me eleven villages from their great hoard of “Basic Data Sheets.” When, years later, the final revisions spilled into a stay at Waseda University, Ōhashi Yukihiro and the members of his zemi were gracious hosts and insightful interlocutors. Back in the United States, David Howell shared a conference paper that shaped my mondai ishiki early on. Susan Burns organized a workshop that launched my attempts at Edo-period paleography. More recently, both of them traveled to New Haven and helped me make critical improvements to the manuscript. James Lee welcomed me into the world of historical demography. David Ambaras pushed me to reexamine my impression that infanticide receded to the margins of society after 1880. Mark Metzler made me critically rethink my argument about the economics of infanticide and helped me refine the manuscript with wonderfully detailed feedback. Peter Perdue, among his many other contributions, found solutions to two key problems: the presentation of the microdemographic analysis and the placement of the twentieth-century material. Kären Wigen helped me reconceive the dissertation as a book and sustained me through a long revision process with her mentorship. Valerie Hansen has watched over this project from a time when it had fewer chapters than it now has parts, and has shaped its course with invaluable advice. Many other scholars have shared their time and ideas with me, including Mark Auslander, the much-missed Hal Bolitho, Al Craig, Hamano Kiyoshi, Helen Hardacre, Hiroshima Kiyoshi, Isoda Michifumi, Michelle King, Kitō Hiroshi, Kondō Shigekazu, Kurushima Hiroshi, Miura Shigekazu, Murayama Satoshi, Nakao Ryōshin, Nemoto Haruko, Ōtsu Tadao, Sawayama Mikako, Saitō Osamu, Ellen Schattschneider, Takahashi Shin’ichi, Joanna Handlin Smith, Suzuki Jun, Takagi Masao, Yuki Terazawa, Toishi Nanami, and Tomobe Ken’ichi. The various stages of the manuscript have benefited from the critiques of readers whose insights would take an extra chapter to acknowledge properly. They are Dani Botsman, Susan Burns, Paul Bushkovitch, Lindsay Dow, Valerie Hansen, David Howell, CJ Huang, William Johnston, Kate Lynch, Sara McDougall, Mark Metzler, Peter Perdue, Bardwell Smith, Carrie Thiessen, Adam Tooze, Brian Turner, Kären Wigen, Robert Wyman, and an anonymous reviewer for UC Press. Few pages of this book could have been written without the labors of local historians and curators in Japan. While my encounters with most of them have taken place in the pages of their publications and archival catalogues, some have obliged me in person. Jingū Yoshihiko took me on a four-day tour of temples and shrines in Gunma. Chiba Nobutane of Hiraizumi showed me his family documents. Other municipal officers, especially in Hitachi Ōta...

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