This monograph is a fascinating exploration of the inner workings of Ōno domain—a domain located in present-day Fukui close to the Japan Sea coast—during the early modern period. It utilizes an investigation of poverty control and relief measures, recorded primarily in the journals of officials in the castle town of Ōno, to enable a detailed reconstruction of the domain's early modern status society. While introducing the reader to two important groups that formed the mendicant core of that society—koshirō (beggar guild) and zatō (guild of the blind)—Give and Take more ambitiously explores the complex interrelations of various groups, including townsmen, peasants, and governing officials, that also comprised the local social status order. Accompanying Maren Ehlers's obvious and impressive commitment to original empirical inquiry in relation to localized social dynamics is her masterly command of Japanese-language secondary scholarship on virtually all aspects of her study, as well as a...

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