This book—originally written in 1886—and republished in 1961, gives an insight into the historical pre-modern architecture of Japan.

Anyone interested in architecture, Japan or history.

The insight into the Japanese culture that is explored, along with the original uses and developments of many types of architectural details.

This is one Englishman's view, not having been to Japan before, and not particularily familiar with the culture. He gives a good descriptive analysis of what he finds there, but not all of the explanations may be entirely correct.

I wanted to look at other books of the period, from Japan and from other writers. This author was one of the first allowed into Japan, about the time of the Boshin War. I also wanted to look at other modern texts and see what they said about some of the elements he described.

Like I had a personal guide to a distant time and place. There are lots of hand-drawn pictures and diagrams of elements. The author attempts to tell a story of how he came to Japan and how he came to learn about the different things he is describing.

Edward S. Morse

It is one of my favorite books that has been reprinted into a version that many more people can now acquire and explore.

If you are not interested in any of the subjects of history, architecture or Japanese culture, this book will not be interesting to you.

Nice hand-held well-bound paperback copy of the original text.

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Created Jan 20, 2006 at 11:30am • Submit your own review...