Memory, History, and Autobiography in Early Modern Towns in East and West

Book excerpt: Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, in both Western Europe and East Asia, towns and cities helped to shape the individual consciousness, against the background of a more traditional society in which collective values remained strong. Towns were centres of stimulus, challenge, and opportunity for residents and visitors, and the identity of the town itself, its character and history, became a strong theme in the formation of the individual. Writing and the circulation of texts played an important part in this process. Towns created artefacts, rituals, and memories that embodied their history and identity, but individuals positioned themselves and their families in the town histories as they wrote them. The seven essays in this volume range in focus from Renaissance Venice to nineteenth-century Edo (Tokyo), and from capital cities (Seoul, London) to provincial towns in France, England, and Japan. They explore the interaction of self, family, and social group and the construction of collective memory, examining autobiographies, letters and “exchange diaries”, family narratives, and urban histories and collections. Together, they challenge the long-prevailing historiography that contrasts the emergence of the individual in European societies with the persistently traditionalist and collective character of East Asian societies in the Early Modern period.