Portraits of Edo and Early Modern Japan

Gerald Groemer is Professor of Japanese and Western Musicology at the University of Yamanashi in Kōfu, Japan. His previous books, both in Japanese and in English, have treated chiefly early modern Japanese culture, especially street performers and blind itinerant musicians.  He has been awarded the Tanabe Prize twice for his Japanese-language monographs and the Koziumi Fumio Prize for his lifetime achievement.

• Introduction: Reading the Edo Zuihitsu.- An Eastern Stirrup: The Great Fire of 1657 (Musashi abumi).- Tales of Long, Long Ago: Recollections of Seventeenth-Century Edo (Mukashi-mukashi monogatari).- The River of Time: Life in Eighteenth-century Edo (Asukagawa).- The Spider’s Reel: Traces of the Tenmei Period (1781-1789) (Kumo no itomaki).- Disaster Days: The Great Earthquake of 1855 (Nai no hinami).