Science and culture in traditional Japan, A.D. 600-1854
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Science and culture in traditional Japan, A.D. 600-1854
(M.I.T. East Asian science series, 6)
MIT Press, c1978
Available at 37 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p [418]-440
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Understanding the processes by which science enters and transforms a society has never been a simple task, and it is to the credit of authors Sugimoto and Swain that "Science and Culture in Traditional Japan (A.D. 600-1854)" makes this process understandable to general readers as well as specialists. Deliberately eschewing a merely scientific or technological focus, the two authors have undertaken to show the development of premodern science in Japan in the context of that country's social and intellectual milieu.Anyone who wishes to understand the development of Japan's science and technology over the last hundred years will appreciate this history of the centuries that preceded modernization, for it is the story of why and how Japan was ready and, more importantly, able to make the leap from Eastern to Western science. The book shows how Japan's long pattern of assimilation--in advancing and receding waves--of Chinese science (and some Western science) laid the foundation for an appreciation of the need for and value of the "new" Western knowledge."Science and Culture in Traditional Japan (A.D. 600-1854)" begins with the first Chinese Cultural Wave, in which Chinese science was introduced into Japan but not completely assimilated. The book then goes on to show how social and political conditions led to patterns of deliberate withdrawal from outside cultural influences, introducing in turn some five centuries of indigenous development. It tells of the pressures for a modern society with the second Chinese Cultural Wave and the first Western Cultural Wave in the sixteenth century; how the Western school of thought was largely ignored in favor of the Eastern tradition; and details the social and intellectual factors that would eventually challenge Japanese isolationism and force a confrontation with the modern Western scientific traditions in the nineteenth century. The book concentrates on the three traditional fields of Japanese science--astrology and calendrical astronomy, mathematics, and medicine--and includes extensive tables and historical charts covering scientific activity over ten centuries.This book is volume 6 in the MIT East Asian Science Series, under the editorship of Nathan Sivin.
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