Tokyo Before Tokyo: Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo

by Timon Screech

Tokyo today is one of the world’s mega-cities and the center of a scintillating, hyper-modern culture—but not everyone is aware of its past. Founded in 1590 as the seat of the warlord Tokugawa family, Tokyo, then called Edo, was the locus of Japanese trade, economics, and urban civilization until 1868, when it mutated into Tokyo and became Japan’s modern capital. This beautifully illustrated book presents important sites and features from the rich history of Edo, taken from contemporary sources such as diaries, guidebooks, and woodblock prints. These include the huge bridge on which the city was centered; the vast castle of the Shogun; sumptuous Buddhist temples, bars, kabuki theaters, and Yoshiwara—the famous red-light district.

Genres: Japan, History, Art, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Academic

272 pages, Hardcover

Published June 15, 2020

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let Me See The Real Japan

While I found this book was informative and well-researched, I also found it to be a bit dense and difficult to get through at times. However, I appreciated the depth of information provided about the history of Tokyo and the shogunate.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the author's attention to detail and the way in which they painted a vivid picture of what life was like in Edo-era Tokyo. It was fascinating to learn about the power structures and social customs of that time, and I feel like I have a much deeper understanding of Japan's history as a result.

While some readers may find the book a bit repetitive or dry, I think it's worth pushing through in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Tokyo's past.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese history or the development of cities in general.

3.7/5

[Paul Hoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

TBT is a well researched album of stories about Japan's Edo capital. Tim ties together earlier Japanese periods into an outline of the great city that the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled for over two hundred years. As a resident of Tokyo from 1978, I was thrilled to read the back stories on many places I have visited, as well as histories of places that no longer exist. Edo/Tokyo has metamorphosed into new neighborhoods, districts and thoroughfares with the 20th Century events and disasters. It's good to know the earlier periods before we have to start piecing together the back stories to the megametropolis that Tokyo has become.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Screech’s training as an art historian is readily apparent in TBT. In a systematic way he carefully and yet still succinctly for the most part explains the cultural, political, and social dynamics which underlaid the development of Edo from a small fishing village in 1603 to the country’s political, cultural, and economic center with a population of 1 million by 1720. His scholarship is demonstrated by notes in the text with 9 pages of references at the end of the book. There are also 3 pages of selected sources and further reading and a 5 page general bibliography.

The author utilizes art to demonstrate the points he is making quite effectively. Readers like me who are already familiar with famous woodblock artists like Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Utamaro will enjoy and learn a great deal about pieces of their work I was already familiar with. The reproductions of the prints are of excellent quality. The ways in which their prints reflected the ideology that the Shogunate was trying to foster about its rule and the social and cultural elements of the city are explained in a readily understandable manner. Poetry and, to a lesser extent folk tales are also used as vehicles through which he explains such things.

Screech uses a great deal of Japanese vocabulary. But he translates and explains the terms very thoroughly. This is no small feat because written Japanese is quite complex. The Japanese proclivity to communicate through the use of puns is noted and carefully articulated.

There are places where the narrative is so thorough as to be a bit slow going. But those who are patient and love things Japanese as I do will be richly rewarded. I came away with a deep appreciation for and understanding of many aspects of Tokyo’s history which I had never known before.

Thanks to my Goodreads friend DJ who informed me of a lecture Screech gave about this book in Feb 2021. It can be seen here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuAtG6...

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this was a pleasure and very enlightening. I’d recommend it to anyone with a strong desire to understand the historical development of the city of Tokyo.

Timon. Screech draws on his deep understanding of Japanese Art and Literature to explain how and why the city developed up to the Meiji period. The epilogue covers the early part of the 20th Century and the author acknowledges that the destruction caused by the 1923 earthquake and firebombing of World War II erased the old city. Anyone familiar with the geography of Tokyo as a city today, will nonetheless find plenty of interest in this beautifully produced book.

[Kyle Goetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely accessible book about the history of Tokyo (then Edo, 江戸) during the Tokugawa shogunate with a brief afterward bringing us into the Meiji era and modernity. Highly recommended for any amateur interested in the history of Japan. I can't speak to academics about this book's value bc I'm not one.

[Otter Kohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real dry, incredibly detailed, but not what I was hoping for in a history of Edo. Some chapters were great, others were so heavy with minute art or architecture details that I had to start skipping through. Overall, I wasn't left with a clear picture of the city or its role in Japanese history.

[Alan Tsuei · Rating 2 out of 5]

雖說名為東京前傳，但其實是摻了一堆京都、歷史、文化、藝術等玩意煮出來的大雜燴，所以讀者如果懷抱著單純了解東京的前世今生而來，那肯定會敗興而歸，因為作者只是帶著你東繞西繞卻不直指東京的本心，另外，作者雖然找了一堆浮世繪或水墨畫來參考比較，但藝術是一種表達心境的創作，而不是照片那樣照搬寫實，這樣做自然只會讓讀者更加混亂而已，畢竟歷史是社會科學是建築在史料與證據上，但藝術就是在完全相反的象限上了…

[Jeremy Jl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into to the development of Tokyo as Japan's capital covering urban planning, art, literature and sub-culture (ie the 'floating world'!)