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.