Rediscovering the Old Tokaido by Patrick Carey

Books on Japan in English.

Rediscovering the Old Tokaido

In the Footsteps of Hiroshige
by Patrick Carey

     For the first time in an English-language edition, published outside Japan, all fifty-five prints from Hiroshige's "Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido" are reproduced in full-colour, supporting a detailed and intriguing account of the author's rediscovery on foot of the historic 303-mile road from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto.
     Most Japanese imagine that the 'Old Tokaido', connecting the two ancient capitals, no longer exists. It is assumed that the road has been almost entirely obliterated by twentieth-century modernization.
     Fired by some clues obtained from old books and maps, the author set out to investigate whether this was really so. More importantly, he followed 'in the footsteps of Hiroshige' and armed with copies of the famous woodblock prints that Hiroshige produced after his own journey in 1832, he tried to identify, in the modern landscape, the sites thatHiroshige had depicted.
     This is his full and frank account supported by many parallel photographs of the Hiroshige locations as they are today, bringing the old and new Japan together for real-time and armchair travellers alike.

Patrick Carey was born in 1940 in Woodbridge, Suffolk. He grew up in London where he taught languages in a variety of schools. He went to Japan in 1980 on a one-year contract to teach English and has remained there ever since. He has taught at Tsuda College, Sophia University, both in Tokyo, and he was until his recent retirement a professor at Reitaku University in Chiba. His hobbies are walking and photography. He is married and lives in Yokohama.

Cover illustration: Stage 3, Kanagawa
Publisher: Global Oriental, Kent, UK
Author: Patrick Carey
ISBN: 1-901903-10-9
Year published: 2000, 2nd impression 2005
Pages: 147 Page size: 136x215mm
Binding: hardcover
Base price: Yen 7,000+

Reader comment: Seldom does a book serve so many purposes as does Rediscovering the Old Tokaido. (1) It is a travel guide starting from Japan's capital and center of commerce with the journey taking the reader past famed resorts, modern industrial centers, and finally ending at Japan's old imperial capital. (2) The book is a hiker's guide, a necessity for anyone embarking on the 303-mile walk from Nihonbashi in Tokyo to Kyoto. (3) The reader learns the history of Japan in a way that will never be forgotten and that ties the past to the present. (4) Here is a journey through the heart and lungs of the country. The reader thus obtains an introduction to the vibrant whole of today's Japan. (5) Last but not least, the highlighting of Hiroshige's famed Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido woodblock series illuminates the journey as it also makes the artist's work more alive in this era when any dunce can take marvelous color photographs.

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