A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds

A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds

L. M. Cullen

Language: English

Pages: 376

ISBN: 0521529182

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Offering a distinctive overview of the pressures responsible for the emergence of modern Japan, Louis Cullen rejects the traditional boundaries of Japanese historiography and combines economic, social, and political approaches to create a powerful analysis. Cullen reviews the Japanese experience of expansion, social transition, industrial growth, economic crisis and war, to present an island nation that is a growing industrial power with little perception of its worldwide context.

A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower

Projected Cities: Cinema and Urban Space (Reaktion Books - Locations)

Hotel Iris: A Novel

Confronting Silence: Selected Writings

The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi: Detective Stories of Old Edo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

or have been gathered together in the prefectural archives (plus a not insignificant number of documents in other locations in Nagasaki) to give an idea of its not unimpressive administrative functioning.79 Nagasaki was the largest government office in Japan – and before 1811 arguably the only one – dealing with mat- ters others than accounting and justice. Its bugyo officers were promising hatamoto, with bright careers ahead of them when they had served their term. In Edo itself, through

see his article ‘Acknowledge U.S. war crimes’ in Japan time s, 26 Aug. 1997. His views are set out at some length in Nishio Kanji, Rekishi o sabaku orokasa: atarashi rekishi ky¯okasho no tame ni [It is unwise to behave as a judge of history: the case for new historical textbooks] (Tokyo, 1997). The history textbooks are, it should be noted, very summary accounts of Japanese history: the presence or absence of a few phrases has a disproportionate effect in interpreting the presentation, and

much Japanese writing on account of its Marxism: to do so, he argued, entails an injustice to its historical achievements. Despite a common western influence on all Japanese historians whether studying Japanese history or the history of western countries, there was and still is a dichotomy between those who study and teach western history and those who pursue Japanese history. There are exceptions of course: an obvious one is ¯ Otsuka Hisao of the University of Tokyo, who studied western

ordering the inhabitants to vacate the coasts of China. In these years, Chinese trade overseas inevitably contracted quite sharply from the high level to which it had recovered in the 1650s. As the prospect of a final Manchu victory in 1684 approached, the spectre of a Manchu invasion of Japan took shape. The book Daigaku wakumon (A discussion of public questions in the light of the great learning) by Kumazawa Banzan (1619–91), one of the most admired texts of Tokugawa Japan, is shot

written language.129 If Dutch presented grammatical and syntac- tical problems for Japanese, its pronunciation, with consonants profusely used and not economically as in Japanese, made conversational knowl- edge particularly difficult. The new competence provided two things: a preparation for direct ne- gotiations with unwanted foreigners, and an ability to translate foreign works into Japanese. Scientific, geographical or general works of political or strategic interest and, in 1808, the

Download sample

Download