From White to Yellow: The Japanese in European Racial Thought, 1300-1735 (Volume 63) - Softcover

Kowner, Rotem

9780773544550: From White to Yellow: The Japanese in European Racial Thought, 1300-1735 (Volume 63)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0773544550 ISBN 13: 9780773544550

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014

When Europeans first landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions did not endure. Gradually the Europeans' positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. Accounting for this dramatic transformation, From White to Yellow is a groundbreaking study of the evolution of European interpretations of the Japanese and the emergence of discourses about race in early modern Europe. Transcending the conventional focus on Africans and Jews within the rise of modern racism, Rotem Kowner demonstrates that the invention of race did not emerge in a vacuum in eighteenth-century Europe, but rather was a direct product of earlier discourses of the "Other." This compelling study indicates that the racial discourse on the Japanese, alongside the Chinese, played a major role in the rise of the modern concept of race. While challenging Europe's self-possession and sense of centrality, the discourse delayed the eventual consolidation of a hierarchical worldview in which Europeans stood immutably at the apex. Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, From White to Yellow traces the racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

Finalist for the 2017 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame
Endorsements"This magisterial work by Rotem Kowner fills an important gap in contemporary scholarship about racial history and European perceptions of the Japanese during the age of maritime explorations, beginning with the voyages of Marco Polo. The author approaches a delicate and complex topic with a breadth of knowledge and erudition based on the careful analysis of primary documents from a wide variety of both printed and manuscript sources in numerous languages." M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J. Center for the Pacific Rim, University of San Francisco.."Rotem Kowner has written an extraordinary book which will be must-reading for anyone interested in Western perceptions of the Japanese from the beginning (Marco Polo's account) to the 18th century, and to anyone interested in the history of the very concept of 'race.'" Gary Leupp, Department of History, Tufts University."Erudite, comprehensive, and clearly-written, From White to Yellow offers the reader a panorama of the Euro-Japanese encounter in the pre-modern period that is unsurpassed in previous scholarship." Ronnie Hsia, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University

About the Author:

Rotem Kowner is an Israeli historian and psychologist specializing in the history of modern Japan, and professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.