Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan

Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan PDF Author: Charlotte von Verschuer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131750450X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book

Book Description
The majority of studies on the agricultural history of Japan have focused on the public administration of land and production, and rice, the principal source of revenue, has received the most attention. However, while this cereal has clearly played a decisive role in the public economy of the Japanese State, it has not had a predominant place in agricultural production. Far from confining its scope to a study of rice growing for tax purposes, this volume looks at the subsistence economy in the plant kingdom as a whole. This book examines the history of agriculture in premodern Japan from the 8th to the 17th century, dealing with the history of agricultural techniques and food supply of rice, wheat, millet and other grains. Drawing extensively on material from history, literature, archaeology, ethnography and botany, it analyses each of the farming operations from sowing to harvesting, and the customs pertaining to consumption. It also challenges the widespread theory that rice cultivation has been the basis of "Japaneseness" for two millennia and the foundation of Japanese civilization by focusing on the biodiversity and polycultural traditions of Japan. Further, it will play a role in the current dialogue on the future of sustainable agricultural production from the viewpoints of ecology, biodiversity, dietary culture and food security throughout the world as traditional techniques such as crop rotation are explored in connection with the safeguarding of the minerals in the soil. Surveying agricultural techniques across the centuries and highlighting the dietary diversity of Japan, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, the history of science and technology, medieval history, cultural anthropology and agriculture.

Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan

Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan PDF Author: Charlotte von Verschuer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131750450X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book

Book Description
The majority of studies on the agricultural history of Japan have focused on the public administration of land and production, and rice, the principal source of revenue, has received the most attention. However, while this cereal has clearly played a decisive role in the public economy of the Japanese State, it has not had a predominant place in agricultural production. Far from confining its scope to a study of rice growing for tax purposes, this volume looks at the subsistence economy in the plant kingdom as a whole. This book examines the history of agriculture in premodern Japan from the 8th to the 17th century, dealing with the history of agricultural techniques and food supply of rice, wheat, millet and other grains. Drawing extensively on material from history, literature, archaeology, ethnography and botany, it analyses each of the farming operations from sowing to harvesting, and the customs pertaining to consumption. It also challenges the widespread theory that rice cultivation has been the basis of "Japaneseness" for two millennia and the foundation of Japanese civilization by focusing on the biodiversity and polycultural traditions of Japan. Further, it will play a role in the current dialogue on the future of sustainable agricultural production from the viewpoints of ecology, biodiversity, dietary culture and food security throughout the world as traditional techniques such as crop rotation are explored in connection with the safeguarding of the minerals in the soil. Surveying agricultural techniques across the centuries and highlighting the dietary diversity of Japan, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, the history of science and technology, medieval history, cultural anthropology and agriculture.

Food Supplies and the Japanese Occupation in South-East Asia

Food Supplies and the Japanese Occupation in South-East Asia PDF Author: Paul H. Kratoska
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349269379
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia between 1941 and 1945 brought with it severe food shortages, largely arising from organizational failures and inadequate transportation. the nine essays in this volume examine the situation in food exporting countries such as Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, in food deficit areas such as Malaya, the Philippines and Java, and in Sarawak which was largely self-sufficient. Two essays examine in detail the famine that struck the Tonkin area of northern Vietnam in 1945.

Rice Production Structure and Policy Effects in Japan

Rice Production Structure and Policy Effects in Japan PDF Author: Yoshimi Kuroda
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137573155
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book

Book Description
Kuroda uses quantitative measures to investigate the rice production structure and effects of agricultural policies in Japan over the second half of the 20th century. Almost all policies have played negative roles in transferring paddy lands from small- to large-scale farms, which has slowed down to modernize the rice sector.

Rice as Self

Rice as Self PDF Author: Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691021104
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book

Book Description
In this engaging account of the crucial significance of rice for the Japanese, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney examines how people use the metaphor of a principal food, such as rice, corn, or wheat, in conceptualizing themselves in relation to other peoples who eat other foods. Rice as Self shows how the Japanese identity was born through discourse with the Chinese, the first historical other. It shows how rice agriculture, in itself introduced from outside, was, ironically, appropriated as a dominant metaphor of the Japanese self. Since then rice and rice paddies have served as the vehicles for their deliberation of selves and others. Using for evidence such diverse sources as myth-histories of the eighth century, the imperial accession ritual, woodblock prints, novels, day-to-day discourse, and opinion polls, Ohnuki-Tierney shows that throughout Japan's history the cultural importance of rice has been deeply embedded in Japanese cosmology, both of the elite and common folk - rice as soul, rice as deity, and ultimately rice as self of the family, the community, and the nation at large. This, she emphasizes, has been so even though rice has not been the "staple food" of the Japanese, as is commonly held. Using Japan as an example, Ohnuki-Tierney proposes a new and complex cross-cultural model for the interpretation of selves and others. The historical transformations of the Japanese identity have been intimately related not only to their encounter with foreigners - the external other - but also to the process of the marginalization of minorities within Japanese society - the internal other - and of external others who ceased to be the privileged other. The model takes into account the power inequities both within and outside a given society. It has broad applications, especially to people for whom foreign "cultural hegemony" is part and parcel of a complex, often ambivalent, process of self-identity.

Review United States-Japan Rice Agreement

Review United States-Japan Rice Agreement PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture. Subcommittee on Cotton, Rice, and Sugar
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description


Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History

Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History PDF Author: Karl F. Friday
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 135169202X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Get Book

Book Description
Scholarship on premodern Japan has grown spectacularly over the past four decades, in terms of both sophistication and volume. A new approach has developed, marked by a higher reliance on primary documents, a shift away from the history of elites to broader explorations of social structures, and a re-examination of many key assumptions. As a result, the picture of the early Japanese past now taught by specialists differs radically from the one that was current in the mid-twentieth century. This handbook offers a comprehensive historiographical review of Japanese history up until the 1500s. Featuring chapters by leading historians and covering the early Jōmon, Yayoi, Kofun, Nara, and Heian eras, as well as the later medieval periods, each section provides a foundational grasp of the major themes in premodern Japan. The sections will include: Geography and the environment Political events and institutions Society and culture Economy and technology The Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History is an essential reference work for students and scholars of Japanese, Asian, and World History.

Japanese And American Agriculture

Japanese And American Agriculture PDF Author: Luther Tweeten
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 478

Get Book

Book Description
This volume reveals that the tensions surrounding US and Japanese agricultural trade lie less between the two nations then in an internal clash between traditional systems and economic growth.

Japan's Rice Policy

Japan's Rice Policy PDF Author: William T. Coyle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rice trade
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Get Book

Book Description
Extract: In this report the origin and nature of each component of Japan's rice policy is described. Pricing policy, diversion programs, and surplus disposal programs are detailed in separate sections. The final section outlines the impact of each on U.S. agricultural trade with Japan in 1980.

Moving Crops and the Scales of History

Moving Crops and the Scales of History PDF Author: Francesca Bray
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300268424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book

Book Description
A bold redefinition of historical inquiry based on the “cropscape”—the people, creatures, technologies, ideas, and places that surround a crop Human efforts to move crops from one place to another have been a key driving force in history. Crops have been on the move for millennia, from wildlands into fields, from wetlands to dry zones, from one imperial colony to another. This book is a bold but approachable attempt to redefine historical inquiry based on the “cropscape”: the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop. The cropscape is a method of reconnecting the global with the local, the longue durée with microhistory, and people, plants, and places with abstract concepts such as tastes, ideas, skills, politics, and economic forces. Through investigating a range of contrasting cropscapes spanning millennia and the globe, the authors break open traditional historical structures of period, geography, and direction to glean insight into previously invisible actors and forces.

Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History

Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History PDF Author: Sven Saaler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317599039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

Get Book

Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History is a concise overview of modern Japanese history from the middle of the nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. Written by a group of international historians, each an authority in his or her field, the book covers modern Japanese history in an accessible yet comprehensive manner. The subjects featured in the book range from the development of the political system and matters of international relations, to social and economic history and gender issues, to post-war discussions about modern Japan’s historical trajectory and its wartime past. Divided into thematic parts, the sections include: Nation, empire and borders Ideologies and the political system Economy and society Historical legacies and memory Each chapter outlines important historiographical debates and controversies, summarizes the latest developments in the field, and identifies research topics that have not yet received sufficient scholarly attention. As such, the book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese history, Asian history and Asian Studies.