"Hiroshige Shaping the Image of Japan" is a comprehensive overview of Hiroshige's work as a woodblock print artist. This publication coincides with the 150th anniversary of the death of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Following a general introduction sketching the cultural and economic environment of the artist, the development of his oeuvre and the history of his appreciation in Japan and the West, a chronological presentation of 140 prints from public and private collections, all illustrated in color, forms the main body of the book.Biographical data are sparse and only very few details of Hiroshige's life help explain the nature of his output. By carefully piecing together the information which can be gleaned from the works themselves and combining it with the current knowledge on print production methods, the author attempts to present a picture of Hiroshige as an artist cum craftsman who efficiently produced for his publishers, creating in the process an image of Japan which endures until this day.