Kim, Boumsoung 金凡性. 2007. Meiji · Taishō no Nihon no Jishingaku: “Rōkaru · Saiensu” o Koete. 明治・大正の日本の地震学―「ローカル・サイエンス」を超えて [Beyond Local Science: The Evolution of Japanese Seismology During the Meiji and Taisho Eras]. Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai. 東京大学出版会 [Tokyo University Press].
During Japan’s Meiji period (1868-1912), when Japanese science was trying to catch up to that of the West, Japanese seismology rose to global preeminence. How did Japanese seismology, particularly seismologist Fusakichi Ōmori, come to occupy this central position in the world? Furthermore, why did they eventually lose that position? These are the questions that Kim discusses with great dynamism.
Chapter outline:
* Prologue: The histories of seismology and Japanese science
* Chapter 1: The science of seismographs, the science of networks: seismic research by gaikokujin [foreigners]
* Chapter 2: The science of prevention and protection: the changing face of Japanese seismology
* Chapter 3: To observe the world: statistics, seismographs, and Fusakichi Ōmori
* Chapter 4: The challenge of physics: the fall of Ōmori’s seismology
* Epilogue: Beyond the historiography of “catching up”
–Takashi Nishiyama, with English translation by Tyson Vaughan
