Social and political life in early modern Japan revolved around three cities: the emperor's city of Kyoto, the shogun's city of Edo, and the commercial center of Osaka. Generously illustrated with maps, photographs, and historic engravings, this is the first English-language book on the'merchant's capital,'Osaka, during the Tokugawa era from 1600 to 1800.
Specialists here share a wealth of material new to English-language scholarship. Their contributions explore such subjects as the early growth and development of the city, the geography of wealth and power in the seventeenth century, political dissidence, the theater, gang violence, and Osaka's religious and intellectual life. One of the first books to focus on a city other than Edo during the Tokugawa era, this work extends our understanding of Japanese urban life during that period. Portraying Osaka as a regional center of government, vibrant economic life, and high and low culture, the book reveals much about the city's distinctiveness and development.