Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan by the French scholar Charlotte von Verschuer is a much anticipated addition to the Needham Research Institute Monograph Series. Translated by Wendy Cobcroft, this volume is an updated and revised version of von Verschuer's 2003 monograph, Le riz dans la culture de Heian: Mythe et réalité. In this new form, accessible to the international scholarly audience, this book is a welcome and valuable contribution to the global and site-specific studies of the histories of agriculture, technology, and the environment, as well as to the histories of knowledge and science of East Asia. Needless to say, this book will also be indispensable reading for those wishing to study premodern Japan. The volume is accompanied by multiple illustrations, maps, and tables, as well as a very useful appendix, which includes a catalogue of edible and crop plants with names provided in premodern and modern Japanese, Latin, English, German, and French; a list of traditional measures used in Japan and East Asia; a chronological table that explains the book's timeline; a seventeenth-century agricultural calendar from one of Japan's northern regions; and calorific values of foods discussed throughout the monograph.
