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The English East India Company's (EIC) enterprise in Japan (1613–1623) is widely recognized as a failure. Scholars of the English-speaking world have emphasized the lack of vendible commodities, the EIC traders' mismanagement, and Japanese hostility towards Christianity. Nevertheless, these narratives often overlook the political and strategic interests of Japan, in the era of political uncertainty after the long warring-states period. This paper re-examines the EIC traders' records against recent studies on Japanese politics. The careful observations of political movements surrounding the Siege of Osaka (1614–1615) reveal how the EIC traders were involved in the dynamics of Japanese history. Within the framework of mercantile connections supported by "mutual benefits," the present study demonstrates how the EIC gradually faced difficulties as the Japanese interests shifted, thus arguing that not only European overseas activity but also the active endeavor of the Asian counterparts significantly influenced global interactions of the early seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a reinterpretation of the meaning and function of the basic sociospatial unit of the early modern Japanese city, the chō. It argues that chō is best understood not as a fixed unit of space but as a conception that could expand, change, and even move. Takanawa-chō, a peripheral area south of Edo, was transformed into the gateway to the city by its association with the transportation industry. The dynamic movement of this particular “flowing chō” not only reflected but also drove the socioeconomic transformation of the city throughout the Tokugawa period and into the early Meiji era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the thought of the Japanese Confucian philosopher Ogyū Sorai, asking whether any traces of historicism can be found in his ideas. Ogyū Sorai was a prominent early 17th-century thinker, whose considerable role in the development of Japan’s modern philosophical tradition is widely known, mostly because of how he criticized the dominant node of Neo-Confucianism that supported the Tokugawa political system. Contrary to the most common trends in analyzing Ogyū Sorai, the author focuses neither on the political or strictly philosophical aspect of his thinking, but rather on his views regarding the past and its role in shaping the future. While discussing the Japanese philosopher’s major works, such as Benmei, Bendō, and Sorai-sensei tōmonsho, the author comes to the conclusion that a historicist approach toward the flow of time can be clearly seen in Sorai’s thinking. His philosophy displays no ahistoricism nor cyclical understanding of time. This creates a strong case for further research on how Sorai’s thought facilitated the development of ideas on progress and modernization in the late Edo period of Japanese history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional historiography of Japanese Buddhism presents the Muromachi period as an era of triumph for Zen, and of decline for the previous near-hegemony of Esoteric Buddhism. However, for the Shingon school, the period from the late Middle Ages to early Edo period was rather a phase of expansion, especially in the more remote locales of Eastern Japan. Focusing on a text authored during the fifteenth century, this article will analyze how this idea of the outskirts or periphery was integrated with the process of creation of orthodoxy in local Shingon temples. In doing so, it will shed new light not only on the evolution, but also on the epistemological role of discourse relating to heresy, and on their role in the legitimation of monastic lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dinbilimleri Journal is the property of Dinbilimleri Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Review of Averting the Great Divergence by Peter Vries: Peer Vries, Averting a Great Divergence: State and Economy in Japan, 1868-1937, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2019, 310 pp In so doing the study provides an overview of Japanese economic development from the Meiji period to World War II which is both accessible to non-specialists of Japan and will appeal to economic historians more broadly. Peer Vries is a prolific global economic historian who has written several influential works on the emergence of modern economic growth, most notably on Britain and China. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Mirai. Estudios Japoneses is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholarly accounts of the European encounter with East Asia tend to emphasize the admiration that Europeans held for Chinese and Japanese culture and society, yet the period also exhibited powerful currents of Sinophobia and Japanophobia. In his account of a 1609 visit to Japan, the Mexican criollo Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco presents an overwhelmingly positive vision of the Japanese that would help support his effort to broker a diplomatic agreement between the Hapsburg Monarchy and the Tokugawa shogunate. A careful reading of the text, nevertheless, reveals the presence of conflicting attitudes toward the Japanese, including a powerful Japanophobic undercurrent probably nurtured by Vivero's prior experience as interim governor of the Philippines. This essay explores how Vivero processes these conflicting attitudes in order to produce, later in life, an image of Japan as an exemplary foil to the Catholic Monarchy in both politics and piety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is taken from the author's presidential address at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, delivered on August 3, 2018. It explores the structural and personal sources of Japan's surprisingly successful transition, in the decades around 1600, to an urban-centered market economy. Particular attention is devoted to artistic innovation as one indicator of the "climate of change" that enabled radical new choices in a society loosed from the authority of old regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between the Netherlands and Japan from the early 1600s. Information on Japan's isolation policy from 1641 to 1854, the Dutch settlement and factory building in Deshima in 1641, and Christianity in Japan during that time is presented. Also included is information on Japan's trading policies after 1854.

The article discusses the use of force and violence among Japanese merchants in Southeast Asia in the early seventeenth century. It particularly examines as evidence the letters of Japanese shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to Southeastern Asian states, noting that he renounced responsibility for merchants and allowed foreign states to prosecute them according to local law. The author reflects on correspondence with rulers of states including Cambodia, Cochinchina, and Patani. He draws comparisons to early modern English and Dutch trade and expansion in Asia, particularly considering the English East India Company (EIC) and the Dutch equivalent, the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC).

Copyright of Socio-Economic History / Shakai-Keizai Shigaku is the property of Socio-Economic History Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The author explores changing social roles and expectations of women's behavior in Japan from the Tokugawa period until after the Meiji Renovation, paying particular focus on the influence of Chinese civilization, especially Confucianism, upon Japanese society. Some of the subjects considered include the 'five ethical relations" of classical Confucianism, the Confucian literary genre of jokun (Lessons for Women), and the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education which defined the ideal relations between husband and wife as being "harmonious."

This paper moves between text and context in order to trace the personal, familial and narrative connections between two women, Nakayama Suzuko (b. c. 1675), wife of a Mito domain official stationed in Edo, and her sister-in-law Kuroda Tosako (1682-1758), wife of an official of Tatebayashi domain. Drawing on four extant texts - two travel accounts and two diary/memoirs - the paper argues that, although marriage and family fundamentally shaped these bushi-class women's lives, these factors did not confine them to the home, but pushed them out into the world to act on behalf of their families as well as for their own enrichment and pleasure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the designed of inrō Topics mention including serving as the examples of the highest quality of the lacquer-ware which was developed from the lacquered stacking boxes, occurs during the Edo period or the Tokugawa shogunate and brings stability in Japan which include the new forms of cultural expression.

The article focuses on the relationships between bureaucrats operating in the Kamigata region of Japan during the late Tokugawa period. It notes that Kamigata is the region surrounding the capital city of Kyoto, Japan, and explores the governing structure of the Bakufu or shogunate. The roles of the appointed governors of Kyoto and Osaka, Japan as intermediaries and decision-makers, and the administrative structure experienced by Kamigata functionaries are also explored. It also notes that the functionaries were subordinate to two separate entities in the Bakufu governing scheme.