Search results for ""Author Richard Pearson""

Like many young men of the time, the boys of King Edward VI School saw the outbreak of the First World War as an opportunity for bravery and excitement. By the time the Armistice was signed in late 1918, thirty-one old boys and one Master had been killed. For such a small grammar school the cost was significant, as too were the number of awards for gallantry, including a Victoria Cross. Set against Stratford-upon-Avon and the boys’ schooldays, this intriguing book details the boys’ war and their involvement in the major battles on the Western Front, in Italy, Salonika, Macedonia, Gallipoli, Bulgaria and Russia. Ultimately a tragic and moving account, it captures the heart of a small community and represents the sense of adventure with which young men went to war.

Read more less

Ōsaka, now a city of 19 million inhabitants, was the economic powerhouse of Japan for two thousand years and remains an important international center. In an unusual archaeological treatment of regional long-term history, Richard Pearson proposes that a kind of entrepreneurial mentality motivated leaders to expand the economy through projects of all kinds. He summarizes results of decades of Japanese intensive archaeological study of these projects and introduces some local museums conserving and interpreting cultural heritage in the face of overwhelming urbanization. The Ōsaka Plain was the scene of vigorous Palaeolithic and Jōmon hunting and gathering communities and large agricultural villages during the Yayoi Period, and was the political center of Japan for parts of the Kofun, Asuka and Nara Periods. In the 5th century AD some of the largest burial mounds in the world were built there. Later it was an area of rich and powerful manors in the Heian and Kamakura Periods. At the end of the Chūsei (Mediaeval) Period, the city of Sakai emerged as the financial center of Japan. and Ōsaka Castle briefly dominated the region. Working in tandem with the adjacent Nara and Kyōto Basins, Ōsaka was a center of innovation and economic, social, and cultural exchange between the Japanese Islands and coastal Asia.

Read more less

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).

Read more less