Samurai and the Culture of Japan’s Great Peace
Fabian Drixler, associate professor of history; William D. Fleming, assistant professor of East Asian languages and literatures and theater studies; and Robert George Wheeler, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science, professor emeritus of applied physics, and professor emeritus of physics
(Yale University Press)
Through artifacts from the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and other collections at Yale, this illustrated volume takes readers on a journey into Japan’s early modern cultural and political history.
It also offers glimpses of medieval Japan and the technology underlying the material culture of the samurai. Some objects are aesthetic as well as technical feats: intricate lacquerware, swords as bright and sharp as the day they were forged, and suits of armor from daimyo (feudal lord) collections.
The book features commoners alternately fearful of samurai violence and swept up in the romance of the cult of loyalty; artists and writers conjuring scenes of adventure and wit; families reaching out to departed kin across the chasm of death; parents deciding whether to raise or reject a newborn baby; and underground Christians hiding their faith behind a Buddhist icon.
The “Samurai and the Culture of Japan’s Great Peace” exhibit at the Yale Peabody Museum will open on March 28th and will be on view until January 3rd, 2016. Please visit the Yale Peabody Museum exhibits page to learn more!