Spectacular Accumulation

Morgan Pitelka's study looks at how objects and social gatherings shaped power in Japan during the late 1500s. Its main subject is Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who went on to found the Tokugawa shogunate, and the book follows both his rise and the way his story was later remembered.

Through Ieyasu's life, the author shows how people, possessions and politics were tightly bound together. The book argues that material goods played a real part in the move from Japan's medieval period to its early modern era, and that these same objects affect how we come to understand that history today.