© Columbia University Press
Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan
December, 2004
Cloth, 272 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-13052-3
$36.00
/ £21.00
"valuable introduction and prolog alert readers to the culturally and historically relative nature of gender roles, love, and sex...Recommended" — Lisa Klopfer, Library Journal
"A smart, compelling examination...This well-researched, scholarly work is a service to women's studies as well as Asian cultural history." — Whitney Scott, Booklist
"An important book about a fascinating topic... magnificently salacious... Johnston's account is succinct and compelling." — Ronald P. Loftus, Journal of Asian Studies
"Johnston's ground-breaking study will satisfy a wide spectrum of readers." — Valerie Durham, Monumenta Nipponica
"...a gripping contribution to stories woven about Abe Sada over the twentieth century and her attempt to tell her own story through testimony." — Christine Marran, Journal of Japanese StudiesUniversity of Minnesota
"If only all history books were this much fun to read." — Marie Seong-Hak Kim, H-Net Reviews
"The scandal of Abe Sada, Japan's most infamous female strangler, is the kernal of William Johnston's rich and fascinating story. Sada's lurid crime has been dramatized in story and film, but this book reaches behind the event to give us an understanding of the sexual morés of early twentieth century Japan. It is an eye-opening and deeply sympathetic account." — Liza Dalby, author of Geisha