Empire of Dogs

Regular price €31.99
Regular price €34.99 Sale Sale price €31.99
19th century Japan
20-50
20th century Japan
A01=Aaron Herald Skabelund
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Aaron Herald Skabelund
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJF
Category=HBLL
Category=HBLW
Category=HBTB
Category=HBTQ
Category=NHF
Category=NHTB
Category=NHTQ
Category=WNGD
Columbia University
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dogs
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
history
human-canine relations
imperial world
imperilaism
Japanese dog breeds
Language_English
miltary dogs
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
SN=Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
softlaunch

Product details

  • ISBN 9781501735882
  • Weight: 454g
  • Dimensions: 155 x 235mm
  • Publication Date: 15 Mar 2019
  • Publisher: Cornell University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

In 1924, Professor Ueno Eizaburo of Tokyo Imperial University adopted an Akita puppy he named Hachiko. Each evening Hachiko greeted Ueno on his return to Shibuya Station. In May 1925 Ueno died while giving a lecture. Every day for over nine years the Akita waited at Shibuya Station, eventually becoming nationally and even internationally famous for his purported loyalty. A year before his death in 1935, the city of Tokyo erected a statue of Hachiko outside the station. The story of Hachiko reveals much about the place of dogs in Japan's cultural imagination.

In the groundbreaking Empire of Dogs, Aaron Herald Skabelund examines the history and cultural significance of dogs in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan, beginning with the arrival of Western dog breeds and new modes of dog keeping, which spread throughout the world with Western imperialism. He highlights how dogs joined with humans to create the modern imperial world and how, in turn, imperialism shaped dogs' bodies and their relationship with humans through its impact on dog-breeding and dog-keeping practices that pervade much of the world today.

In a book that is both enlightening and entertaining, Skabelund focuses on actual and metaphorical dogs in a variety of contexts: the rhetorical pairing of the Western "colonial dog" with native canines; subsequent campaigns against indigenous canines in the imperial realm; the creation, maintenance, and in some cases restoration of Japanese dog breeds, including the Shiba Inu; the mobilization of military dogs, both real and fictional; and the emergence of Japan as a "pet superpower" in the second half of the twentieth century. Through this provocative account, Skabelund demonstrates how animals generally and canines specifically have contributed to the creation of our shared history, and how certain dogs have subtly influenced how that history is told. Generously illustrated with both color and black-and-white images, Empire of Dogs shows that human-canine relations often expose how people—especially those with power and wealth—use animals to define, regulate, and enforce political and social boundaries between themselves and other humans, especially in imperial contexts.

Aaron Herald Skabelund is Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University.