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Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake
The Great Earthquake of 1923 left much of Tokyo desolate. Shitamachi, the Low City, heart of Tokyo's cultural life for centuries, was a smoking ruin--hundreds of blocks of wooden dwellings, teahouses, and entertainment quarters gone forever. Yet Tokyo was a city that would not die. Here, in his brilliant sequel to "Low City, High Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake," Edward Seidensticker carries the story of this irrepressible metropolis forward to the present, showing it rising not only from the disaster of the earthquake but a second time, from the still more serious catastrophe of 1945, to become a city in which skyscrapers stand in the midst of neighborhoods jammed full of little bars and "soaplands," baseball is the national sport, one can spend $500 on a meal, the best subway system in the world is matched by the worst traffic jams, and only a multimillionaire can afford to buy a house. Exciting, horrifying, utterly distinctive, modern Tokyo comes to life in "Tokyo Rising" as never before.
- GenresJapanHistoryNonfiction
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Edward G. Seidensticker
50 books34 followersEdward George Seidensticker was a noted post-World War II scholar, historian, and preeminent translator of classical and contemporary Japanese literature.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 7, 2021
I’m not sure when I bought this book, but possibly 20-25 years ago already. Sadly, only now did I finally read it. Tokyo Rising was first published in 1990, one year before I first came to Japan as an exchange student – in Sapporo, not Tokyo, though I did spend some time in Tokyo (mostly in Asakusa, if I remember correctly) then. I also lived in Tokyo, in Akabane, for just over two months before a university job lured me to Fukui in 2012. I wish I’d read this before, because the present-day Tokyo he describes has surely changed by leaps and bounds. But that doesn’t make Tokyo Rising any less interesting, for elements of the life and culture of Tokyo that Seidensticker describes can still be found, and the history he gives of the place, through a surprising amount of its sprawling geography, is never less than fascinating (to me). Finally, it was a nice escape to read this when, thanks to the pandemic, there’s currently no chance of my visiting Japan.
March 18, 2019
A sequel to his “Low City, High City” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), this book finely narrated with related rare black-and-white photographs as well as its three maps of ‘Tokyo in 1927’, ‘The Tokyo Wards, 1932-1947’ and ‘Tokyo Prefecture as It Has Existed since 1947’ (pp. x-xv) would be a delight to many keen Japanophiles who might have read his acclaimed translations from the original Japanese works by Yasunari Kawabata (Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, The Master of Go, etc.), Yukio Mishima (The Decay of the Angel), Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji) and Junichiro Tanizaki (Some Prefer Nettles, The Makioka Sisters).
April 27, 2022
*The second of two books that I read of his within a single volume
Written by the translator of many of Japan's most famous 20th century authors, the two books contained in this volume trace the evolution of modern day (well...up to the late 80s...he didn't know what was around the corner...bubble about to pop...) Tokyo from the Edo it once was.
While full of plenty of actual research and many very specific details, it's a far more engaging and personal look at the city's past than one might find with a more academic text. Seidensticker spent the vast majority of his life in Tokyo and one really gets the sense of this when reading...the things that intrigue him or annoy him (he's wonderfully both nostalgic and curmudgeonly...especially about manga!) and the people, particularly writers, who he either knew personally or knew of. He actually includes descriptions from novels or non-fiction works from writers like Kafu or Tanizaki that describe the Tokyo they know (or think they know, wish they knew, wish still existed...).
This is also a wonderful book for people with a wide variety of interests, as Seidensticker seems to have been, as it ranges all over the place, from subway lines and sewers (or lack thereof) to celebrated Meiji murderesses who played themselves on stage in plays about the murders they'd committed to prefectural rezoning to the horrors of World War II bombing and the 1923 Kanto Earthquake.
As a long-time resident of Tokyo, what I appreciated most about this book was perhaps the way that Seidensticker is able to explain so clearly and concisely (well, mostly concisely) the geography and layout (and makeup) of what seems such a chaotic and jumbled large city to many...and he does this so incredibly effectively in terms of its evolution over time as well. It's so incredible to think of the land of Marunouchi (south of the Imperial Palace), home to the most expensive real estate of all time at the time he wrote the book in the late 80s, being a barren home for badgers and gamblers in early Meiji after it emptied out after its early use as a home for regional samurai families during the Edo period came to an end.
Seidensticker's translation of landmarks might throw a few people though! Never heard anyone call the West Exit of a translation "Westmouth" before (though this is technically sort of right...西口）and he also translates names of buildings that tend to be known by their romanized names in English (like Budokan, Kokugikan, etc.).
Highly recommended for anyone living in Tokyo or interested in the history of Tokyo...which tends to get overlooked for the history of Kyoto, etc. when you first get into Japanese history.
Written by the translator of many of Japan's most famous 20th century authors, the two books contained in this volume trace the evolution of modern day (well...up to the late 80s...he didn't know what was around the corner...bubble about to pop...) Tokyo from the Edo it once was.
While full of plenty of actual research and many very specific details, it's a far more engaging and personal look at the city's past than one might find with a more academic text. Seidensticker spent the vast majority of his life in Tokyo and one really gets the sense of this when reading...the things that intrigue him or annoy him (he's wonderfully both nostalgic and curmudgeonly...especially about manga!) and the people, particularly writers, who he either knew personally or knew of. He actually includes descriptions from novels or non-fiction works from writers like Kafu or Tanizaki that describe the Tokyo they know (or think they know, wish they knew, wish still existed...).
This is also a wonderful book for people with a wide variety of interests, as Seidensticker seems to have been, as it ranges all over the place, from subway lines and sewers (or lack thereof) to celebrated Meiji murderesses who played themselves on stage in plays about the murders they'd committed to prefectural rezoning to the horrors of World War II bombing and the 1923 Kanto Earthquake.
As a long-time resident of Tokyo, what I appreciated most about this book was perhaps the way that Seidensticker is able to explain so clearly and concisely (well, mostly concisely) the geography and layout (and makeup) of what seems such a chaotic and jumbled large city to many...and he does this so incredibly effectively in terms of its evolution over time as well. It's so incredible to think of the land of Marunouchi (south of the Imperial Palace), home to the most expensive real estate of all time at the time he wrote the book in the late 80s, being a barren home for badgers and gamblers in early Meiji after it emptied out after its early use as a home for regional samurai families during the Edo period came to an end.
Seidensticker's translation of landmarks might throw a few people though! Never heard anyone call the West Exit of a translation "Westmouth" before (though this is technically sort of right...西口）and he also translates names of buildings that tend to be known by their romanized names in English (like Budokan, Kokugikan, etc.).
Highly recommended for anyone living in Tokyo or interested in the history of Tokyo...which tends to get overlooked for the history of Kyoto, etc. when you first get into Japanese history.
February 20, 2008
A nice good fat book on the 20th Century history of one of my favorite cities of all time - Tokyo. To even call Tokyo a city, it's really a living a series of living nerves. I never been to such an unique place like Tokyo. Anyway Tokyo has a colorful history, and Edward G. Seidensticker really covers it well.
April 20, 2013
I found this book on the history of Tokyo a very interesting read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews