Ukiyo-e are paintings and prints of 'the floating world' of Edo (Tokyo), which had transformed itself in just a century from a swampy village to a metropolis of about a million people. This book offers a glimpse of a vanished world that is fresh and visually rewarding to modern eyes.
Not a history book as much as a collection of beautiful pictures from the Japanese Edo period with informative explanations (but read it from cover to cover and you will learn surprisingly much)!