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Screech, Timon. The lens within the heart: the western scientific gaze and popular imagery in later Edo Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002, 2nd edition, xxiii, 305pp., sewn PAPERBACK, warped copy, glossy paper slightly wavy in different directions, book does not lie flat, irritating damage, otherwise the book appears little used if at all, very good for reading or study despite defect. "It has long been assumed that Japan's closed country policy meant that the country was isolated from the influence of the outside, and in particular, the western world. However, this study of 18th century Japan, using sources wholly unstudied since their writing, reveals the profound influence that the introduction of western technology and scientific instruments including glass, lenses and mirrors, had on Japanese notions of sight, and how this change in perception was reflected most clearly in popular culture. Screech offers interpretations of 18th century thought through popular objects, and makes propositions which many scholars considered groundbreaking on the book's first publication in 1996. The conclusions reached here have yet to be substantially challenged." - CONTENTS: 1 Trade and Culture in the Eighteenth Century 6 -- 2 The "Batavian Temperament" and its Critics 31 -- 3 Mechanics and Motions 61 -- 4 Machinery for Pictures 94 -- 5 Seeing In 133 -- 6 The Eye and the Lens 166 -- 7 The View from On High 212. 9780824825942 ISBN 0824825942. Seller Inventory # 88484
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