In recent years, major new archaeological discoveries have redefined the development of towns and cities in Japan. This fully illustrated book provides a sampler of these findings for a western audience. The new discoveries from Japan are set in context of medieval archaeology beyond Japan by accompanying essays from leading European specialists.

In recent years, major new archaeological discoveries have redefined the development of towns and cities in the Japanese archipelago. The uncovering of the plans of major port towns such as Sakai, Kusado Sengen and Ichijōdani, and the revealing of early phases in the development of cities such as Kamakura and Hakata provide an important new resource in understanding the cultural and economic processes which shaped medieval Japan. This fully illustrated book provides a sampler of these findings for a western audience. The new discoveries from Japan are set in context of medieval archaeology beyond Japan by accompanying essays from leading European specialists. The global significance of Japanese medieval archaeology is assessed through comparing the development of towns in Japan and northern Europe. The medieval period in Japan and northwest Europe saw urban growth with towns not only providing centres of administration but also fostering economic development. The pressures which led to such growth, however, be they political or social, were universal in character. following basic requirements of food, shelter, security and spiritual nourishment, towns provided commercial infrastructures, transport and storage facilities, and the setting for trade, craft specialists and art. Chapters include 'The archaeology of medieval towns in Japan and europe: an introduction' (Brian Ayers and Simon Kaner); 'Permanent urban frameworks ('armature') and economic networks in northern France c.700 - c.1000' (Henri Galinié); 'Medieval urbanism and culture in the cities of the Baltic: with a comparison between Lübeck, Germany, and Sakai, Japan' (Manfred Gläser); 'The development of Hakata as a medieval port town' (Ōba Kōji); 'The establishment and transformation of Japan's medieval capital, Kamakura' (Oka Yōichirō); 'Ichijōdani: the archaeology of a Japanese medieval castle town' (Ono Masatoshi); 'Japanese medieval trading towns: Sakai and Tosaminato' (Richard Pearson); and 'Medieval ceramic production in the aegean, 1100 - 1600 AD: some considerations in an east-west perspective' (Joanita Vroom).

This volume centres on how the exchange routes transformed the frontier regions of the Silk Road. In doing so, it utilises a range of methods to reach an archaeological interpretation of the factors that linked people with the environment; movements, settlements, and beliefs.

An innovative new study of daily life and urban society in late medieval Japan.

"...a succinct and thoughtful description and analysis of the development and haracter of Bali's 'touristic culture'...this is an excellent book for a student readerhip. It renders in straightforward language some quite difficult concepts." - Anthropos "This well-written, readable, and concise book forms an excellent introduction to the relationship between culture and tourism." - Focaal "...there is much to enjoy in this book; the writing is uncomplicated, lively and engaging: the conclusions are both daring and thought-provoking. Above all, thee is the author's readiness to engage with cross-cultural comparison in a theoretically driven and explicit way." - Social Anthropology Based on field research carried out over two decades, the author surveys the development of the anthropology of tourism and its significance, using case studies drawn from Indonesia, New Guinea and Japan. He argues that tourism, once seen as rather peripheral by anthropologists, has to be treated as a phenomenon of major importance, both because the size of the flows of people and capital involved, and because it is one of the major sites in which the meeting and hybridization of culture takes place. Tourism, he suggests, leads not to the destruction of local cultures, as many critics have implied, but rather to the emergence of new cultural forms. The central part of the book presents a detailed case-study of the island of Bali in Indonesia. It traces the development of tourism there during the colonial period, and the ways in which "Balinese traditional culture" was developed first by western artists and scholars in the colonial period, and more recently by Balinese government officials in the guise of "cultural tourism." The general theme of the "presentation of tradition" is also discussed in relation to Toraja funerals in the Indonesian province of Sulawesi, western visitors to the Sepik River in Papua-New-Guinea, and the small city of Tono in northern Japan which has become a center for the study of folk-lore.

This groundbreaking collection brings the Middle Ages to life and conveys the distinctiveness of this diverse, constantly changing period. Thirty-eight scholars bring together one medieval world from many disparate worlds, from Connacht to Constantinople and from Tynemouth to Timbuktu. This extraordinary set of reconstructions presents the reader with a vivid re-drawing of the medieval past, offering fresh appraisals of the evidence and modern historical writing. Chapters are thematically linked in four sections: identities beliefs, social values and symbolic order power and power-structures elites, organizations and groups. Packed full of original scholarship, The Medieval World is essential reading for anyone studying medieval history.