June 2021: Stranger in the Shogun's City: Discussion Questions

[Alison]

1. It did make me want to learn more about the Edo Period, especially the Edo's height. It's hard to believe it was a larger city than London!

2. Border controls without modern technology never cease to amaze me.

3. People's history (especially women's history) is recoverable.

4. I'm not sure. Perhaps I admire her tenacity, but wish she weren't so naive.

5. I understand that Dr. Stanley had to make some conjectures, but I wish she'd found ways to differentiate fact from speculation without the word "probably". It was distracting, especially in a work of narrative history.

6. I wonder how much people's history we could recover if there were better funding for scholars like Dr. Stanley.