Enlightenment · East Asia · Culture

1701

Kaempfer's Amoenitates Exoticae

June 1, 1701

Engelbert Kaempfer, a German physician who had spent two years at the Dutch trading post on Deshima, published his observations on Japan in Lemgo. The book contained the first accurate Western account of Tokugawa society, a description of acupuncture, and a word he invented from the Japanese cha: tea. Europe began to imagine Japan.