An Encyclopedia of Edo Castle - William De Lange

Edo Castle presents a brilliant example of all the hallmarks that make Edo-period castles such magnificent structures. This encyclopedia is the first work in the English language to provide a comprehensive overview of Edo Castle's history, its architecture, and the fascinating lives of those who called it home for more than four centuries.

It covers the castle's long and turbulent history. How the Heian-period aristocrat Edo Shigetsugu built himself a fortified mansion (yakata) on an elevated headland at the head of Edo Bay. How the great castle architect Ōta Dōkan turned it into a full-fledged castle. And how successive Tokugawa shōguns expanded the castle and castle town into an impenetrable citadel.

It covers the castle's topographical situation, the redirected rivers, the construction of its vast baileys, their thirty-six approaches, their early earthen ramparts, their later stone walls, and their wide moats.

It covers the castle's defensive structures. From the three towering keeps that were successively built and destroyed again by fire within the span of a few decades, to the multiple iterations and layouts of the residential palaces that came to occupy its inner baileys.

It covers the mysterious workings of the vast bakufu apparatus that perpetuated the well-oiled clock of Edo Castle and its castle town.

It covers the daily routines of the shōgun, his consort, his concubines, the thousands of personnel who served them. And it recounts the major events by which their lives were shaped-the audiences, the inaugurations, the seasonal celebrations, the festivals, the devastating earthquakes and city fires.

Most poignant, perhaps, is the 100-page chapter tracking the individual history of each of its imposing defensive structures-the turrets, gates, and bridges-not only within the castle proper, but throughout the castle town, most of which have sadly disappeared from Tokyo's cityscape.

Further context and background information is given in an appendix with detailed maps of Edo's topography, the changing layout of the castle town and castle, as well as incredibly detailed layouts of the Honmaru-goten, the vast complex of residential palaces and bakufu offices at the heart of the castle-all rounded off with a 300-term glossary and a 500-entry index.

For anyone with a serious interest in Edo Castle and Japanese castles in general, this 340-page, full-color tome, with over 300 images and maps, is the ultimate go-to reference.