The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan

by Jilly Traganou

The Tôkaidô Road offers a comparative study of the Tôkaidô road's representations during the Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras. Throughout the Edo era, the Tôkaidô highway was the most important route of Japan and transportation was confined to foot travel. In 1889, the Tôkaidô Railway was established, at first paralleling and eventually almost eliminating the use of the highway. During both periods, the Tôkaidô was a popular topic of representation and was depicted in a variety of visual and literary media. After the installation of the railway in the Meiji era, the Tôkaidô was presented as a landscape of progress, modernity and westernisation. Such representations were fundamental in shaping the Tôkaidô and the realm of travelling in the collective consciousness of the Japanese people.

Genres: Japan, History, Art, Japanese History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2003

Reviews

[Stray Toki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great and I learned a ton from it.
But first, I wanted to note that this is not a book describing Tokaido road and its postal stations. It's an academic work that assumes you are already familiar with the topic of Tokaido in general and offers you an additional layer of information: how did the image of Tokaido change with time, how was it depicted, what did it symbolise for different people and in different periods. How maps of Tokaido looked like and why?
It covers things like this, making it a great book about the Japanese culture of Edo and Meiji periods. Just make sure you learn about Tokaido beforehand and you won't be disappointed.

[Melos Han-Tani · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book about the tokaido (a long route between kyoto and tokyo) - not only introduces some useful theoretical frameworks about movement, transportation and space, but also gives an overview of things like the social dimensions of who travelled the tokaido, how different groups of people perceived it at different points in time, and how these perceptions were shaped by representations of the tokaido (through illustration, writing, etc).

Though it's about the Tokaido specifically, there's a lot that relates to modern notions of tourism and travel to think about.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's fascinating how much material from both art and literature there is about this road. The book starts out a little dry in chapter 2 (ch. 1 is the introduction), dealing with cartography and the historical facts about the road as such. But it really takes off in chapters 3 and 4, which look at both the cultural aspect of the road and the social aspects and changes. (It is not a gigantic book - there is just one more chapter and that is the conclusion). You don't have to be a road-buff or trainspotter to enjoy this piece of infrastructural history.

[Erebmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent summations and presentation. Thoroughly enjoyed particularly the coverage of literature and maps.