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Reff Daniel T. , Richard K. Danford and Robin D. Gill (ed. and trans.): The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English-language Edition of Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan by Luis Frois, S.J . (Japan Anthropology Workshop Series.) xi, 299 pp. London : Routledge , 2014. £95. ISBN 978 0415 72757 0 .
Reviews: East Asia
To a European visitor, sixteenth-century Japan might seem a place where virtually everything, from material culture to social practices, from aesthetic preferences to moral sensibilities, somehow defies expectations: how could such pronounced differences exist between Europeans and "a people who are so civilized, have such lively genius, and are as naturally intelligent as" the Japanese (p. 31)? This is the premise of Luís Fróis's Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan, which the Jesuit missionary wrote in 1585 after twenty years in Japan. Drawing upon his extensive first-hand observations and knowledge, Fróis wrote his Tratado as a pedagogical tool to orient Jesuits newly arrived in the country.
In 1955, shortly after the manuscript's discovery, Josef Franz Schütte prepared a transcription and German translation of it, and Japanese translations of the text have long been available in popular paperback editions, but the volume under review is the first English scholarly edition. Several years ago, one of this volume's three editor/translators, Robin Gill, self-published Topsy-Turvy 1585 (Key Biscayne: Paraverse Press, 2004), a 739-page consummately playful English translation and discussion of Fróis's text. While the volume under review overlaps somewhat with Gill's earlier work, it offers a more...