Women of the Mito domain : recollections of samurai family life /

Stanford University Press has performed a noteworthy service in reissuing this title originally published by Tokyo University Press in 1992. Instructors in courses on either Japanese history or women's history will now be able to assign Kate Nakai's excellent translations of the writings of the prominent activist and feminist Yamakawa Kikue (1890-1980). On the basis of interviews with her mother and other relatives, Yamakawa pieced together an account of life among warrior women in the closing years of the Tokugawa era in one of the domains that was central to the overthrow of the shogun. Nakai has translated Yamakawa's work on women in Mito (published in Japanese in 1943) in its entirety and has appended to it relevant passages from Yamakawa's later work on Mito at the end of the Tokugawa era. Nakai's annotations explain Japanese terms and refer readers to relevant works in English. Yamakawa's vivid evocation of a bygone era is enhanced by pictures and maps. The genealogies and tables of currency and measures appended to the book provide handy references for the attentive reader. All collections. S. A. Hastings Purdue University