Description
Book SynopsisIn parts of eighteenth-century Japan, couples raised only two or three children. As villages shrank and headcounts dwindled, posters of child-murdering she-devils began to appear, and governments offered to pay their subjects to have more children. This book focuses on Eastern Japan, where population growth resumed in the nineteenth century.
Trade Review"Mabiki is a fabulous piece of historical scholarship on an important topic that until now had been relegated to the realm of traditional Japanese folktales." -- Martin Dusinberre American Historical Review "This complex and immensely valuable book is certainly essential reading." -- Luke S. Roberts Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Innovative, interesting, and rewarding ... [an] extremely stimulating book." -- Osamu Saito Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies "Mabiki skillfully blends statistical and textual analysis... Drixler's methodology is rich and complex... The book is packed with interesting insights that will appeal to a wide range of readers." -- Robert Eskildsen Public Affairs "Mabiki is a model of methodological sophistication, imaginative and thorough use of primary sources, and incisive writing... an immensely important work and a must-read." Monumenta Nipponica
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements A Note on Conventions 1. Introduction: Contested Worldviews and a Demographic Revolution PART I. THE CULTURE OF LOW FERTILITY, CA. 1660--1790 2. Three Cultures of Family Planning 3. Humans, Animals, and Newborn Children 4. Infanticide and Immortality: The Logic of the Stem Household 5. The Material and Moral Economy of Infanticide 6. The Logic of Infant Selection 7. The Ghosts of Missing Children: Four Approaches to Estimating the Rate of Infanticide PART II. REDEFINING REPRODUCTION: THE LONG RETREAT OF INFANTICIDE, CA. 1790--1950 8. Infanticide and Extinction 9. "Inferior Even to Animals": Moral Suasion and the Boundaries of Humanity 10. Subsidies and Surveillance 11. Even a Strong Castle Cannot be Defended without Soldiers: Infanticide and National Security 12. Infanticide and the Geography of Civilization 13. Epilogue: Infanticide in the Shadows of the Modern State 14. Conclusion Appendix 1. The Own-Children Method and Its Mortality Assumptions Appendix 2. Sampling Biases, Sources of Error, and the Characteristics of the Ten Provinces Dataset Appendix 3. The Villages of the Ten Provinces Dataset Appendix 4. Total Fertility Rates in the Districts of the Ten Provinces Appendix 5. Infanticide Reputations Appendix 6. Scrolls and Votive Tablets with Infanticide Scenes Appendix 7. Childrearing Subsidies and Pregnancy Surveillance by Domain Notes Bibliography Index
