2. Timon Screech, "The 'Batavian Temperment' and its Critics" from The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular imagery in Later Edo Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 31-60

Taken from a book in which the first chapter discusses the trading history between the Dutch and the Japanese, Screech offers the reader a look at the beginning of western influence on Japan. This angle he takes is through the Japanese perception of the westerners and the influence of said perceptions. Screech states clearly that as a historian his intention is not to "estimate whether such evaluations are true but to constate their normative force." The Dutch, once believed to be primitive people, began to be known as the Ran- meaning love of precision. By informing the reader when instruments known collectively as saiku, came into Japan and effected their idea of logic and influenced Japanese art, the concept of precision is further illustrated. Historically at this point in time there was a conflict between China, the other foreign presence in Japan, and the Dutch. Screech illustrates this through example of art.

In this historiographical essay Screech attempts to give an account of the Japanese assessment of Europe during the late seventeen hundreds. I believe his analysis is fairly successful and would be useful for anyone interested in this specific area. I found many things interesting, especially the general concept of people's perception of whole cultures, the reciprocity of such acts, and how telling those perceptions are of the actual culture doing the perceiving.

Jan Greenfield