Excerpt from The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6, 000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of the West with Asia which the historian of the future will unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time. I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was told chiefly during rural journeys-more than half the population is rural extending to twice the distance across the United States or nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John 0' Groats. These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other volume has explored. Because they fall short of What was planned, and in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may be pardoned on the beginnings of the book - one of the many literary victims of the War. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

スコットが六千マイルの旅で見出したのは、近代化の波に洗われる直前の日本の真髄です。紀行文の枠を超え、当時の人口の過半を占めた農村を徹底調査することで、日本人の精神的基盤を抉り出しています。著者の情熱的な眼差しは、統計には表れない人々の息遣いや土の匂いを鮮明に捉え、文明論としての圧倒的な深みを与えています。 本書の白眉は、西洋とアジアの対峙という壮大な問いを、農村のミクロな視点から紐解いた点にあります。異邦人の著者が偏見を排し、人々の知恵や苦悩に沈潜していく過程は知的な冒険譚としても秀逸です。失われゆく土着の生命力と尊厳が格調高い文体で刻まれており、読む者の魂を揺さぶる歴史的傑作といえるでしょう。