BOXER (C. R.).—THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY IN JAPAN 1549-1650 — by C. R. Boxer, Camões Professor of Portuguese, King’s College, University of London, Published by the Iniversitu of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, and the Cambridge University Press, London. 1951. In- 8.º gr. de XIV-II-535-[I] págs. E.
“ [...] This book tells how the first Europeans (the Portuguese) reached Japan and the Far East and discusses the organizing of the first Jesuit missions in Japan. It tells, also, of the early overseas expansions of the Japanese, of the prohibition of Christianity by the Japanese, and of the savage persecution of the missionaries and converts.
The author has brought much new material to his book, some from the original Jesuit secret and confidencial reports, some from the Marsden manuscripts in the British Museum, and some from the Ajuda Library at Lisbon.
“The significance of the book may be better understood in the author’s words, “So it is with the story of the suppression os Christianity in Tokugawa Japan; for the sickening cruelties and incredible heroism which marked its course have been reënacted on a far vaster scale in our own day and generation. If only for this reason, the history of the Christian Century may perhaps be regarded as a ‘tract for the times’, and one from which the reader can draw his own moral.”
Edição ilustrada em folhas impressas à parte; no final com um mapa do Japão em folha desdobrável, indicando os lugares onde os cristãos existiram ou foram perseguidos, baseado em mapas da ‘Concordance’ de Anesaki (1930) e nos ‘Elogios’ de Cardim (1650).
Contents: I. From Marco Polo to Mendes Pinto; II. Japan through Jesuit Spectacles; III. Christianity and the Kurofune; IV. Jesuits and Friars; V. Christian Culture and Missionary life; VI. Pirates and traders; VII. The Palm of Christian Fortitude; VIII. Sakoku, or the closed country; Appendices; Notes; Bibliography; Index and Glossary.
Encadernação original em tecido; embora com rasgões marginais e sujidade, conserva a sobrecapa de papel editorial.
