Review: The Aesthetics of Strangeness: Eccentricity and Madness in Early Modern Japan

The Aesthetics of Strangeness: Eccentricity and Madness in Early Modern Japan by W. Puck Brecher

Misfits. Oddballs. Bohemians. In Tokugawa Japan? Yes indeed, a veritable plethora of them. The Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867) was hardly the first repressive regime, or the last, to throw nonconformity out the front door only to find it creeping in through the back door, through the window, through cracks in the walls.