just enough
lessons in living green from
traditional japan
azby brown
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd
Copyright © 2012 Sydney Azby Brown
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1179-0 (ebook)
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The Tuttle Story: “Books to Span the East and West”
Most people are surprised to learn that the world’s largest publisher of books on Asia had its humble beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company’s founder, Charles E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in publishing. And his first love was naturally books—especially old and rare editions.
Immediately after WW II, serving in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur, Tuttle was tasked with reviving the Japanese publishing industry. He later founded the Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, which thrives today as one of the world’s leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Tuttle was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had published over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by the Japanese emperor with the “Order of the Sacred Treasure,” the highest tribute Japan can bestow upon a non-Japanese.
With a backlist of 1,500 titles, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its past—inspired by Charles Tuttle’s core mission to publish fine books to span the East and West and provide a greater understanding of each.
contents
| preface to the new edition | |
| foreword | |
| part I | field and forest |
| the farmer from kai province | |
| rice cultivation | |
| rice production and its byproducts | |
| thatching a roof | |
| building materials and their virtues | |
| learning from field and forest | |
| part II | the sustainable city |
| the carpenter of edo | |
| ground transportation | |
| learning from the sustainable city | |
| part III | a life of restraint |
| the samurai of edo | |
| daimyo estates | |
| learning from a life of restraint | |
| acknowledgments | |
| bibliography | |
| index |
preface to the new edition
just enough
Just three years have passed since the publication of the first English-language edition of this book, but in many ways it feels to me like that time was the twilight of a different era. I was very gratified by the early response to Just Enough, both by the many offers I received to speak on the subject in Japan and abroad and by the tenor of the many informed comments that arrived in my in-box and from audience members. Many of the people who attended my talks overseas clearly already knew a lot about organic farming, sustainable building, and other related subjects, or had immersed themselves in Japanese history, culture, and thought. They seemed hungry for the kind of information and outlook I had presented, and found the book a useful tool both for informing their own practices and for communicating the issues and potential solutions to others. I was repeatedly asked by people from different parts of the world, “Do you think this kind of thinking would be applicable in my own country?” Many of them, whether in India, Thailand, Spain, or Zambia, had good reason to believe that their own cultures and traditions had possessed a better understanding of how to live harmoniously with the environment in the past, and felt that that development and industrialization could be achieved without inflicting such tremendous costs on the land, air, water, and on their communities themselves. So many of them had already taken the first steps, and were ready to learn more, and saw my book as a useful model. As I said above, this was very gratifying.
The response from Japanese readers was even more gratifying. It has often been noted that Japanese society is peculiar in how receptive it can be to observations and criticisms when they are presented by foreigners. Japanese writers, academics, or activists can struggle in obscurity for