Japan

Charles Ferdinand Camille Ghislain Descantons de Montblanc (comte de Montblanc)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 101K words
Chapters: 11

Report an error Find this book

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Le Japon by comte de Charles MontblancAuthor: Montblanc, Charles, comte de, 1833-1894,Language: French, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Nov 22, 2008

Editor's review

This is the original French-language eBook of Le Japon by the French author Charles de Montblanc, classified under history and Asia-related categories and released free of charge by Project Gutenberg. As a nineteenth-century European account of Japan, its value lies not in providing accurate information about present-day Japan but in showing how European intellectuals of the time understood, described, and imagined the country; it can serve as a primary text for research on modern East-West exchange and European perceptions of Japan. Readers should note its period perspective and possible biases and should not treat it as a guide to modern Japan. It suits readers interested in Japan around the Meiji era, European travel writing, and Orientalist discourse, and its value as a historical source becomes clearer when read alongside modern Japanese studies.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History specialists studying modern European perceptions of Japan and East-West exchange
Readers with French reading ability who enjoy nineteenth-century travelogues and accounts
Researchers needing primary texts to document European Orientalist discourse
Enthusiasts interested in the background of modern Japanese history who are willing to read old foreign-language books

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking practical information on contemporary Japanese travel, society, or economy
General readers unable to read French and not intending to use translation tools
Japan researchers expecting rigorous modern scholarly annotation and up-to-date data

Reading tips

Treat it as a historical source rather than a guide, and note the author's observational standpoint and possible period biases as you read.
Compare it with other European accounts of Japan from the same period to see how different authors' focuses and tones vary.
Learn the basic timeline of nineteenth-century Japan-France exchange first; the main text will then be easier to place.
Check old transliterations of place and personal names as you go, and avoid mapping them directly onto modern administrative divisions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can this book be used as a travel guide to Japan?

No. It is a nineteenth-century European author's observations and account of Japan; the information is long outdated and carries the perspective and biases of its time. For travel or understanding contemporary Japan, choose modern publications; this book is better read as a historical source.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

It helps to first understand the basic outline of Japan's opening to the outside world in the nineteenth century and the common conventions of European travel writing and Orientalist writing of the time. Intermediate-to-advanced French ability and a willingness to check old place and personal names will noticeably improve the reading experience.

What are the features of the Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides a free electronic text that is easy to search and copy, but it usually contains no modern scholarly annotations or introduction. Readers need to supply background material themselves and should note that the text is in the original French and may retain old spellings and expressions.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Charles Ferdinand Camille Ghislain Descantons de Montblanc (comte de Montblanc) Author · French · 1833–1894

Charles de Montblanc (Montblanc, Charles, comte de, 1833–1894) was a French diplomat, businessman and writer, born in Paris in 1833 and died there in 1894. He lived in Japan twice, during the opening of the country at the end of the Tokugawa period, and these experiences became the main source of his writing. Three of his works are held here, including Le Japon, Le Japon en 1866 and Considérations générales sur l'état actuel du Japon, all written in French and describing Japanese politics, trade and foreign relations, offering European readers of the time first-hand observations of Japan before and after its opening. Public information is limited, and details of his life and literary standing remain to be verified; judged by the works available, his writing is based on personal experience, emphasizes factual record and analysis of the situation, and is pragmatic in style, making it noteworthy primary material among nineteenth-century French accounts of Japan.