LOW CITY, HIGH CITY

Rating:
Summary: Could be Better
Review: I started this book with high hopes that were quickly dashed. The book jumps around both geographically and chronologically. Seidensticker will talk about one ward of Tokyo, then move on to another, and 20 pages later start talking about the first ward again. Likewise, he'll discuss the Meiji period, then the Taisho, and then back to Meiji. The maps of Tokyo also have some errors. Seidensticker also relies, it seems, way too much on the recollections of Nagai Kafu, who he admits was a close personal friend. The redeeming quality of this book is that if you can wade through this and make heads or tail of it, there is a wealth of information on the transformation of Tokyo into a modern metropolis. It's just painful to extract it.

Rating:
Summary: Could be Better
Review: Low City, High City is a lively and informal account of Tokyo's history from the end of the Tokugawa regime (in 1868) to the destruction of the city in the 1923 Kanto earthquake. During that half century, Tokyo was transformed from a feudal pre-industrial city of samurai and commoners to an imperial capital of bureacrats, businessmen, factory workers, and flappers. Seidensticker, a distinguished translator of Japanese literature, has written a highly readable cultural and social history of Tokyo that captures the colorful introduction of "Western" urbanism and chronicles the slowly fading old city. An absolute must for anyone with even a casual interest in Tokyo's past.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary history of Tokyo
Review: Low City, High City is a lively and informal account of Tokyo's history from the end of the Tokugawa regime (in 1868) to the destruction of the city in the 1923 Kanto earthquake. During that half century, Tokyo was transformed from a feudal pre-industrial city of samurai and commoners to an imperial capital of bureacrats, businessmen, factory workers, and flappers. Seidensticker, a distinguished translator of Japanese literature, has written a highly readable cultural and social history of Tokyo that captures the colorful introduction of "Western" urbanism and chronicles the slowly fading old city. An absolute must for anyone with even a casual interest in Tokyo's past.