A University Of California Press Asia Pacific Modern-A History of Timelessness

"Brilliant. Explores the environmental consequences of the twenty-year rebuilding of Japan's Ise shrines, which are anything but timeless, and reveals how they challenge assumptions about monuments, preservation, and authenticity."—Thomas Conlan, Professor of Japanese History, Princeton University

"Architecture and sustainability have much to learn from Jordan Sand's multifaceted explorations of the Ise shrine and its cyclical rituals of rebuilding and material practices. A must for anyone concerned with the future of the built environment."—Mohsen Mostafavi, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor

“A History of Timelessness is a highly original and deeply insightful inquiry into the Ise shrines and the ‘stuff’ that gives them meaning. And it is a joy to read.”—John Breen, coauthor of A Social History of the Ise Shrines: Divine Capital

Every twenty years for over a millennium, the Ise shrines have been rebuilt from the ground up, and hundreds of shrine treasures replaced. At Ise, the aspiration to timelessness that is the essence of all monuments has been pursued through endless repetition rather than construction in durable materials. Spanning from Ise's prehistoric beginnings to the present, A History of Timelessness explores the manifold circulation of goods this massive enterprise has engendered, as well as the political and ideological purposes the ritual rebuilding has served. In the late nineteenth century, the state took control of the shrines and recast them as an embodiment of modern imperial power. Yet, rather than resolving their status, nationalization awakened new anxieties around Ise's permanence and ephemerality and new contests over shrine buildings and materials. Through an exploration of Ise's tumultuous history, Jordan Sand rethinks the temporality of monuments and the materiality of the state.