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| Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, And Japan | 
 enlarge | Author: Christine M. E. Guth
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $4.89
You Save: $25.06 (84%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 723947
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 234
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 6.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 0295984562
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.204310092
EAN: 9780295984568
ASIN: 0295984562
Publication Date: September 30, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Paperback, Book in Excellent Condition
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| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
Charles Longfellow, son of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, arrived in Yokohama in 1871, intending a brief visit, and stayed for two years. He returned to Boston laden with photographs, curios, and art objects, as well as the elaborate tattoos he had "collected" on his body. His journals, correspondence, and art collection dramatically demonstrate America's early impressions of Japanese culture, and his personal odyssey illustrates the impact on both countries of globetrotting tourism. Interweaving Longfellow's experiences with broader issues of tourism and cultural authenticity, Christine Guth discusses the ideology of tourism and the place of Japan within nineteenth-century round-the-world travel. This study goes beyond simplistic models of reciprocal influence and authenticity to a more synergistic account of cross-cultural dynamics.
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| Customer Reviews:
An American in Edo June 24, 2007
This is one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read. Politically correct academics have succeeded in erasing Longfellow from the American canon, replacing him and his contemporaries with names you've never heard and will never know how to pronounce. Perhaps this bit of exotica if not to say erotica will give life back to this former pillar of American culture. It is the son, not the sage of Cambridge whom Professor Guth has chosen as her subject. But what a character he is. Longfellow Jr. had very little going for himself besides boredom and a nearly limitless bank account, so he went on an extended grand tour of the Orient, setting himself up in a Japanese harem, stocked like a koi pond which nubile Japanese maidens. Besides an addiction to Asian flesh, young Longfellow seems to have keyed into that great American pastime known as shopping with the result that he brought a warehouse full of souvenires back to fill Boston's museums and the mansions of his father's aristocratic friends. Any way you look at it, this story has legs. It's a miracle Hollywood hasn't grabbed hold of it. Stay tuned.
A cultural expose of Japan in the 19th century February 7, 2005
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Charles Longfellow was the son of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Charles visited Japan in the 1870s intending a brief visit, and stayed for two years, returning to Boston with photos and elaborate tattoos he had 'collected' on his body. But Christine M.E. Guth's Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, And Japan is not so much a survey of collectible items nor even tattoo history, as a cultural expose of Japan in the 19th century travel world. Chapters survey the state and nature of Japanese culture in the world of the times, using art and curios as a focal point.
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