The Lens Within the Heart: the Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan

Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. xxiii, 305 pages: illustrations; 26 cm Ex-library with no external labels. Bottom outer corner rubbed; else tight, clean and very good(-) thus. See photos. Paperback. ISBN: 9780824825942, 0824825942

"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."--Jacket