1st Edition
Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan
Introduction 1. Irrigated rice and dry crops 2. A mountainous environment: shifting cultivation 3. Biodiversity: harvesting of wild plants 4. Food security: how much rice did they eat? 5. Polyculture in premodern Japanese traditions Conclusion
Biography
Charlotte von Verschuer is a Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris, France. Her research interests focus on agriculture, economics, foreign relations and material culture. Her books include Across the Perilous Sea: Japanese Trade with China and Korea from the Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries (2006).
Wendy Cobcroft is a translator of premodern Japanese history and literature.
"Although the book was previously published in French (in 2003) in somewhat different form (and reviewed in MN 61:3, pp. 407–409), English-language readers are indebted to the Needham Research Institute and Routledge for making this translation available. Its chapters are dense by comparison to the readings to which many of our students are accustomed, but rich in detail, technical explanations, and more that provide great benefit to readers. In an adventuresome analysis such as this, there is much that is subject to further discussion, but Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan gives scholars a rich intellectual diet on which to chew."
Philip C. Brown, The Ohio State University, Monumenta Nipponica
