Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600-1817 an essay on the cultural, artistic and scientifc influence exercised by the Hollanders in Japan from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries Hardcover - 1936

The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1936 Book. Good. Hardcover. English text.; Hardcover (without dust jacket); 17 x 25 cm.; 0.8 Kg.; 190 pages with a few illustrations.; Used with signs of wear on the exterior hardcover cloth, namely some yellowing. Signs of wear on the interior, namely some yellowing on the front and back free endpaper and on the first and last pages, otherwise the interior is in good condition.; "The idea of the work originated with two lectures on the same theme given by the writer at the invitation of the Royal Netherlands Geographical Society at the Hague and Amsterdam in October, 1935. It is hardly necessary to add that the material then used is presented here in a considerably expanded and more detailed form, except as regards the illustrations, the number of which had unfortunately been drastically curtailed owing to their high cost of reproduction. This last factor is also responsible for the unavoidable but regrettable omission of the proper Sino-Japanese equivalents for the romanised names and titles in the text. A word of explanation abut the title may not be out of place. Strictly speaking it is not pedantically accurate, as the Netherlands East India Company was not formed until 1602, and it was not until seven years later that one of its vessels reached Japan. The Company was dissolved in 1798, but in so far as Japan was concerned it may be regarded as having continued down to the end of the Napoleonic period, since the Japanese government and officials continued to treat the Hollanders in Japan as representatives of the once all-powerful Company. But even if the dates given do not coincide exactly with the lifetime of Jan Compagnie, they give an adequate idea of the period when Dutch influence was most strongly felt. From the time of Von Siebold onwards the Hollanders served, from a cultural standpoint, more as a channel of communication between the outer world and Deshima than the fountain-head and source of Western knowledge in Japan. This book can hardly be expected to appeal to the general reading public, and it is intended only for those who possess at any rate a working knowledge of the broad outlines of Japanese history. It is hoped however that the earnest student of things Japanese - in no matter what respect - will find something of particular interest in one or other of the chapters, which taken as a whole cover a great deal of hitherto untrodden ground. " excerpt from the preface by Charles Ralph Boxer..