In this engaging and innovative new book, French scholar Jacques
Proust analyzes the image Europe presented to Japan, deliberately
or otherwise, from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the
eighteenth century. Appearing for the first time in an American
translation, Europe through the Prism of Japan relies on a large
quantity of underexplored documents from which Proust has tried to
reconstruct, like a puzzle, Japanese-European relations during the
age of European exploration.
This fascinating book describes in careful detail developments
in Japanese culture and civilization during three hundred years of
interaction between Japanese and Europeans, including Dutch
merchants, Spanish Catholic missionaries, and German and Portuguese
Jesuits. Proust examines not only Europeans' influence on Japan but
also the unique Japanese interpretation of European culture. This
fresh perspective offers a prism through which Europe may be viewed
and frequently sheds light on facets of European civilization of
which not even the Europeans, at the time, were aware.
Proust's lively study is especially valuable because of its
interdisciplinary nature. Covering topics as wide ranging as art
history, theology, philosophy, political and social history, and
even the history of medicine, Proust interweaves these fields to
present a unified historical and intellectual fabric.
This round-trip journey between Japan and the West, which in the
sixteenth century took about four years and today can be done in
twenty-four hours, has the advantage of imposing on comparative
studies a unique geographical and historical framework. Proust
broadens our understanding of two very different cultures by
providing newinsight into both European and Japanese history.
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