Pour accompagner la parution de son livre “Chocolat. La véritable histoire d’un homme sans nom“, Gerard Noiriel a publié sur le blog “Chocolat” ses “Remerciements, archives et bibliographie“. On peut lui en être vraiment reconnaissant, surtout pour la liste des archives, qui sera extrêmement précieuse. Merci beaucoup.
Scholars and scientists are often asked how they started a project and what triggered their research. For the topic of this blog, I can bring a straightforward answer.
First I read a review of Noiriel’s book, Chocolat in the daily newspaper Le Monde. It rose my curiosity, and I bought the book. I enjoyed it so much that I could not stop reading before reaching its end.
I was fascinated by its use of electronic resources, particularly the digitalized collection of the national Library in France. And as a male Caucasian living in Japan, that is as a privileged immigrant encountering sometimes curious situations, I became interested in the distinction Noiriel offered to do between prejudices and systemic racism.
Then I remembered having read in newspapers about a short silent film, Kiriki, acrobates japonais.
Logically I submitted a query at the Gallica website with this phrase; its results were many and surprising, and I decided to explore further the situation of Japanese acrobats in France.
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