Intro -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Note on Transliteration -- CHAPTER ONE. The Level of Physical Well-Being in Tokugawa Japan -- CHAPTER TWO. Housing and Furnishings -- CHAPTER THREE. A Resource-Efficient Culture -- CHAPTER FOUR. A Healthful Lifestyle -- CHAPTER FIVE. Urban Sanitation and Physical Well-Being -- CHAPTER SIX. Demographic Patterns and Well-Being -- CHAPTER SEVEN. Stability in Transition -- CHAPTER EIGHT. Physical Weil-Being -- Glossary -- Index
Summary
Japan was the only non-Western nation to industrialize before 1900 and its leap into the modern era has stimulated vigorous debates among historians and social scientists. In an innovative discussion that posits the importance of physical well-being as a key indicator of living standards, Susan B. Hanley considers daily life in the three centuries leading up to the modern era in Japan. She concludes that people lived much better than has been previously unders
