When Europeans first landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions did not endure. Gradually the Europeans' positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. Accounting for this dramatic transformation, From White to Yellow is a groundbreaking study of the evolution of European interpretations of the Japanese and the emergence of discourses about race in early modern Europe. Transcending the conventional focus on Africans and Jews within the rise of modern racism, Rotem Kowner demonstrates that the invention of race did not emerge in a vacuum in eighteenth-century Europe, but rather was a direct product of earlier discourses of the "Other." This compelling study indicates that the racial discourse on the Japanese, alongside the Chinese, played a major role in the rise of the modern concept of race. While challenging Europe's self-possession and sense of centrality, the discourse delayed the eventual consolidation of a hierarchical worldview in which Europeans stood immutably at the apex. Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, From White to Yellow traces the racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.

About the Author
Rotem Kowner is professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa.

Reviews
" From White to Yellow is a big book in every way. The product of immense research, it is an exceptionally ambitious work that makes a string of innovative and far-reaching arguments. Even more strikingly, it is simply the first of a planned two-volume series that, once completed, will span over six hundred years of European interactions with Japan. ... The scale of the task and the depth of the research invite a comparison to Donald Lach' s Asia in the Making of Europe, a groundbreaking series that can best be described as an almost supernatural feat of scholarship. ... Overall the work is a significant achievement that should be read by anyone working in the field. It moves Japan from the margins to the very center of discussions over the development of early modern racial discourse, making a powerful case for the importance of the European encounter with Japan. Japan represented a problem for Europeans, and Kowner brilliantly dissects the varied ways in which they struggled to deal with it in the early modern period." Monumenta Nipponica " A path-breaking book, rich in insights and extraordinary well researched, with a huge bibliography covering works in twelve languages. Kowner has meticulously explored the ramifications and details of encounters between Europeans and the various Others. [From White to Yellow] is unsurpassed in its careful examination of European writings on Japan." Journal of World History " A remarkable scholarly achievement. It throws valuable light on evolving European attitudes to race and to racial hierarchies and demonstrates how they were filtered through different social mechanisms - religion, trade, power." Ethnic and Racial Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9780773544550
Author Rotem Kowner
Format Paperback
Page Count 712
Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press