Publications of Note

Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya kaidan. Edited with an introduction by Saitō Takashi. Chisokudō, Nagoya, 2020. 292 pages. $12.00, paper. The story on which this book is based dates to the 1727 publication of Yotsuya zōtan; the version presented here is "based on a Kabuki play known as the Tōkaidō yotsuya kaidan, first performed in 1825" (p. 1). The 15-page Editor's Introduction is followed by translations of 23 tales.

Avant la tempête: la Coreé face à la menace japonaise 1530–1590. By Guillaume Carré. Institut d'Études coréennes, Collège de France, Paris, 2019. 406 pages. €35.00, paper. This book examines Korean anticipation of, and preparation for, the attempted Japanese invasions in 1592 and 1598. Carré considers the need for reform in the Korean military and administrative systems as well as the rise of piracy and smuggling and the growing international instability in East Asia in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Matsuo Bashō: Travel Writings. Translated and edited by Steven D. Carter. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 2020. xxxviii, 266 pages. $54.00, cloth; $18.00, paper. "This book presents fully annotated translations of the six texts of Matsuo Bashō that are generally categorized as travel literature" (p. viii), in the chronological order of the journeys that form the background of the texts. It includes a glossary of literary terms, notes on important people and places, and "short essays intended to supplement the introductions and notes" (p. ix).

The Origins of the Modern Japanese Bureaucracy. By Yuichiro Shimizu; translated by Amin Ghadimi. Bloomsbury, London, 2020. xiv, 269 pages. $114.00. Shimizu "ventures to tell the story of the birth and growth of Japanese bureaucracy over the half-century between the Meiji Restoration and the era of Taishō democracy" (p. 4). He asks where the men in the bureaucracy came from and where they went and seeks to answer the basic question, "what is a bureaucracy?"

A History of Russo-Japanese Relations: Over Two Centuries of Cooperation and Competition. Edited by Dmitry V. Streltsov and Shimotomai Nobuo. Brill, Leiden, 2019. xxxii, 627 pages. €138.00. The result of a threeyear research project by Russian and Japanese historians, this volume offers analysis of the history of relations between Russia and Japan from the eighteenth century until the present day. It is formatted as a parallel history to present views and interpretations from the perspectives of both countries that showcase the differences and similarities in their joint history.

A History of Discriminated Buraku Communities in Japan. By Teraki Nobuaki and Kurokawa Midori; translated by Ian Neary. Renaissance Books, Kent, UK, 2019. xxii, 290 pages. £70.00. Described by its publisher as the first broadly based history in English of the Buraku communities and their antecedents, this work is intended for a wide readership and as a source book for further study about ongoing social discrimination against the Buraku.

Japanische Grundherrschaft im 12. bis 16. Jahrhundert: Die Region Minase im Spannungsfeld der Interessen von Hofadel, Klerus und Kriegeradel. By Astrid Brochlos. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2019. x, 149 pages. €38.00, paper; €38.00, E-book. In this volume, the author adds to her previous work on manorial rule in Japan, taking up questions of how court nobility, warrior elites, and clergy acted and interacted in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods and the effects on land ownership. The author focuses on the decline of the monastic Minase estate and compares it to a neighboring domain with connections to the imperial family.

Kyōto und seine Anderen: Bildkünstlerische Imaginationen der Küste auf japanischen nanban byōbu. By Nora Usanov-Geißler. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2019. 228 pages. €46.00. This study of pictorial imaginations of the Japanese coast discusses historiographical shifts in interpretations of the paintings in nanban byōbu (literally, "Southern Barbarian screens") of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author finds that the paintings convey heterotopic imaginations of cultural exchange that were generated in different social contexts of the capital.

Militarismus des Zivilen in Japan 1937–1940: Diskurse und ihre Auswirkungen auf politische Entscheidungsprozesse. By Tomohide Ito. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2019. 591 pages. €65.00. This work on...