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The Tokyo region of Japan is, in terms of population, the largest urban area on earth. Its centre comprises the 23 wards of Tokyo itself but the urban sprawl has long since extended to include the other major cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama. From the early 16th century, when the Tokugawa rulers of Japan established their administrative headquarters there, Edo, as it was known, developed quickly into one of the largest cities in the world. It was renamed Tokyo, or 'Eastern Capital', when the Emperor moved there in 1868. In the 20th century most of Tokyo was destroyed first by the Kanto earthquake of 1923 and then by the American bombing of 1945. Nonetheless, it was rapidly rebuilt, and is now, along with London and New York, one of the major control centres of the global economy. Yet behind the ultramodern facade of the main commercial areas, Tokyo remains largely a city of narrow streets and small, intimate neighbourhoods. However, the threat of serious earthquakes remains and the relocation of the capital is being increasingly discussed. This is the first annotated, critical survey of the English-language literature on Tokyo and its region.
The agency of photographs is a recurrent concern within the context of the city. Whether found in architectural records, social documentary, photojournalism, or artistic practice, photographic objects are embedded in urban contestation, aesthetically charged by artists, reinserted into social histories, and mobilized to imagine a future city. Photogenic Montreal takes a question initially posed by heritage debates – what does photography preserve? – and creates a rich conversation about the agency of the human actors before and behind the camera, and of the medium itself. The interplay of archives and activisms structures the book. Photographs that appear to be sealed off in newspapers, ...