Environment in Premodern & Early Modern Japan

General

Barnes, Gina L. "Japan's Natural Setting." In Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850, edited by Karl Friday, 3–15. New York: Westview Press. 

Barnes, Gina L. "Vulnerable Japan: The Tectonic Setting of Life in the Archipelago." In Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present, edited by Philip C. Brown and Bruce L. Batten, 21–42. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2015. 

Batten, Bruce L. “Climate and Environment in History.” In Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History, edited by Karl F. Friday, 23-37. Abingdon, Oxon, and New York: Routledge, 2017.

Bichler, Regina M. 2023. "Harm and Harmony—Concepts of Nature and Environmental Practice in Japan" Histories 3, no. 2: 62–75. https://doi.org/10.3390/histories3020006

Cook, E.R., Krusic, P.J., Anchukaitis, K.J. et al. "Tree-ring Reconstructed Summer Temperature Anomalies for Temperate East Asia since 800 C.E." Climate Dynamics 41 (2013): 2957–72.

Goto Shusaku, Hideki Hamamoto and Makoto Yamano. "Climatic and environmental changes at the Southeastern coast of Lake Biwa over the past 3000 years, inferred from borehole temperature data." Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 152, no.4 (2005): 314–25. 

Miller, Ian Jared, Julia Adeney Thomas, and Brett L. Walker, eds. Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environment of a Global Power. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2013.

Pflugfelder, Gregory M., and Brett L. Walker, eds. JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies The University of Michigan, 2005.

von Verschuer, Charlotte. Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan. Translated and edited by Wendy Cobcroft. London: Routledge, 2016

Totman, Conrad. Japan: An Environmental History. London: Tauris, 2014.

Totman, Conrad. Pre-Industrial Korea and Japan in Environmental Perspective. Leiden: Brill, 2004. 

Ancient/Classical

Farris, William Wayne. Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645–900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Farris, William Wayne. Daily life and demographics in ancient Japan. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 2009. 

Farris, William Wayne. "Famine, Climate, and Farming in Japan, 670–1100." In Heian Japan,  Centers and Peripheries, edited by Mikael Adolphson, Edward Kamens, and Stacie Matsumoto, 275–304. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007. 

Goodwin, Janet R. "Claiming the Land: Chōgen and the Development of Ōbe Estate." In Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan, edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott, 231–252. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2018. 

Kawasumi Tatsunori. "Settlement Patterns and Environment of Heijō-kyō, an Ancient Capital City Site in Japan." In Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present, edited by Bruce L. Batten and Philip C. Brown, 43–57. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2015. 

Ōyama Kyōhei. "Beyond the Secular: Villages, Estates, and the Ideology behind Chōgen's Land Reclamation Projects." In Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan, edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott, 211–230. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2018. 

Piggott, Joan R. "Loggers and Cultivators of Nabari: Tōdaiji's Kuroda Estate in Heian Times." In Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan, edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott, 164–196. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2018. 

Totman, Conrad. "The Ancient Predation, 600–850." In The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan, 9–33. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 

Medieval

Farris, William Wayne. Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.

Ihara Kesao 井原今朝男, ed. Kankyō no nihonshi v. 3: Chūsei no kankyō to kaihatsu/seigyō 環境の日本史3：中世の環境と開発・生業. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2013.

Itō Keisuke. "Why Were There No Severe Famines in Fourteenth-Century Japan? Social Change, Resilience, and Climatic Cooling." Monumenta Nipponica 73, no. 2 (2019): 187–212.

Kimura Shigemitsu. "Agricultural Expansion and Irrigation in the Early Medieval Age." In Land, Power, and the Sacred: The Estate System in Medieval Japan, edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott, 143–63. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2018. 

Ono Yoshirō 小野芳郎. Mizu no kankyō shi: "Kyō no meisui" wa naze ushinawareta ka 水の環境史「京の名水」はなぜ失われたか. PHP kenkyūjo PHP研究所, 2001.

Totman, Conrad. "Forests and Forestry in Medieval Japan, 1050–1550." In The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan, 34–49. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 

Totman, Conrad. "Depletion during the Early Modern Predation, 1570–1670." In The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan, 50–80. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 

Osamu Saito. "Climate, Famine, and Population in Japanese History: A Long-Term Perspective." In Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present, edited by Bruce L. Batten and Philip C. Brown, 213–229. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2015. 

Yoshikoshi Akihisa 吉越昭久 and Katahira Hirofumi 片平博文, eds. Kyōto no rekishi saigai 京都の歴史災害. Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 2012.

Early Modern

Brown, Azby. Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan. Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing, 2013.

Chaiklin, Martha. "Exotic-Bird Collecting in Early-Modern Japan." In JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life, edited by Gregory Pflugfelder and Brett Walker, 125–60. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2005.

Hanley, Susan B. "Urban Sanitation in Preindustrial Japan." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 1 (Summer 1987): 1–26.

Howell, David. "Fecal Matters: Prolegomenon to a History of Shit in Japan." In Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power, edited by Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas and Brett L. Walker, 137–151. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013.

Jannetta, Ann. Epidemics and Mortality in Early Modern Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Kelly, William. Water Control in Tokugawa Japan: Irrigation Organization in a Japanese River Basin, 1600–1870. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1982.

Marcon, Frederico. "Inventorying Nature: Tokugawa Yoshimune and the Sponsorship of Honzogaku in Eighteenth-century Japan." In Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power, edited by Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas and Brett L. Walker, 189–206. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013.

Totman, Conrad. "Forestry in Early Modern Japan, 1650–1850: A Preliminary Survey." Agricultural History 56, no. 2 (1982): 415–25.

Totman, Conrad. "Land-Use Patterns and Afforestation in the Edo Period." Monumenta Nipponica 39, no. 1 (1984): 1–10.

Totman, Conrad. "Logging the Unloggable: Timber Transport in Early Modern Japan." Journal of Forest History 27, no. 4 (1983): 180–91.

Totman, Conrad. The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Totman, Conrad. The Origins of Japan's Modern Forests: The Case of Akita. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1985.

Totman, Conrad. "Preindustrial River Conservancy: Causes and Consequences." Monumenta Nipponica 47, no. 1 (1992): 59–76.

Totman, Conrad. "The Negative Regimen: Forest Regulation." In The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan, 83–115. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 

Walker, Brett. "Commercial Growth and Environmental Change in Early-Modern Japan: Hachinohe's Wild-Boar Famine of 1749." In JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life, edited by Gregory Pflugfelder and Brett Walker, 163–92. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 2005. 

Walker, Brett. The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590–1800. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Walker, Brett. "Sanemori's Revenge: Insects, Eco-System Accidents, and Policy Decisions in Japan's Environmental History." Journal of Policy History 19, no. 1 (2007): 113–44.

Walker, Brett. Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010.

Notes

This reading list was generously crowdsourced through the Premodern Japanese Studies (PMJS) community.

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