Description
Book SynopsisBy 1853 Japan had been transformed from a sparsely populated land of nonliterate tribal peoples into an elaborately structured commercial society sustaining massive cities and a array of sophisticated cultural production. This work examines the origins of Japanese civilization and explores in the classical, medieval, and early-modern epochs.
Table of ContentsList of Maps
Preface
1 The Beginnings
Prehistoric cultures
The Yamato age
2 Classical Japan: An Age of Aristocratic Bureaucracy
The origins of aristocratic bureaucracy
Evolution of the political order, A.D. 700-1100
Higher culture
Aristocratic Buddhism
Arts and letters
The larger society
The waning of an age
3 Medieval Japan: An Age of Political Fluidity
The emergence of bushi rule
Evolution of the political order, A.D. 1250-1500
Higher culture
The bushi ethos
Religious thought and action
Arts and letters: a new aesthetic unity
Social change: the early phase of a metamorphosis
Economic trends
Military trends
Trends in gross productivity and population
The legacy of an age
4 Early-Modern Japan: An Age of Integral Bureaucracy
The forging of integral bureaucracy
Emergence of the new structure
The chronology of pacification
Evolution of the political order, A.D. 1615-1850
Elaboration of the polity
Articulation of an ideology of rule
Stresses in the polity
Higher culture
Bushi culture
Chanin culture
The spread of literacy and learning
The pattern of early-modern thought
Social change: toward completion of a metamorphosis
Urbanization
Commercialization
Rural change
The decay of an age
Rural disorder
New directions in arts and letters
New trends in political thought
Growth and regulation
The environmental legacy
Early-modern growth
Early-modern regulation
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliographical Note
Index
