Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Edo culture, in spite of its continuing presence, was not highly valued in the Meiji period. In the Taishō period, when Westernization was again at a high tide, the cult of Edo developed among minorities. In the war years of Shōwa, 1931–1945, when the cult of Japan was widely subscribed to, the cult of Edo was at its lowest ebb. The same unpopularity continued during the Occupating period, 1945–1952. After 1952, in parallel to economic recovery and accelerated industrialization, the cult of Edo emerged in the field of young people's fashion as an expression of their yearning for simple living.
1 Kawazoe Noboru and Yamada Munemutsu, Kiku—Nihon Bunka o Kangaeru (Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1979). Originally published by Esso, 1978. Kawazoe follows suggestions by Kon Wajirō (1888–1973), the architect, who studied the city life of Edo as the beginning of mass society in Japan. His studies are collected in Kon Wajirō Shū (Domestic Shuppan, 9 vols, 1971–72).
2 Isao, Kumakura, Mingei no Hakken (Kadokawa Shoten, 1978).Google Scholar