Jordan Sand

On 11 November 1855, a massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed most of Japan’s capital city, Edo, the precursor of modern Tokyo. Roughly 7000 people were reported dead or injured, and the numbers rose in the days that followed. There were no newspapers published in the city – the shogun’s government forbade public comment on anything directly concerning the regime –...

For​ more than two hundred years there was a megacity in Japan that almost no one from outside the country had ever seen. Edo, capital of the Tokugawa shoguns, began as a minor castle town around 1600 but grew rapidly after the Tokugawa dynasty demanded that around 250 feudal leaders establish estates in the city. Commerce flourished thanks to their conspicuous consumption. By 1720, Edo had...