Description
Book SynopsisThe 'Opening of Japan' has been central to the retelling of Japan's modern history. Reopening the Opening of Japan fundamentally reconsiders what that historical moment entailed. What did intensified connections between Japan and the world mean both inside and outside of the country, and what does this tell us about Japan's historical significance on a global scale? The chapters excavate a rich array of surprising cross-border connections, from the global trade in mummified mermaids to the Japanese-Russian intellectual links underpinning the work of Akira Kurosawa. Re-thinking connectivity through non-state transnational perspectives, the book guides readers to new ways of doing and writing history. Contributors are: Lewis Bremner, Natalia Doan, Manimporok Dotulong, Maki Fukuoka, Eiko Honda, Sho Konishi, Mateja Kovacic, Joel Littler, Chinami Oka, Yu Sakai, Olga Solovieva, and Warren Stanislaus.
Trade Review‘A pioneering critique of the historiography of "the opening." The book is a major contribution to the field, re-thinking approaches to global as well as national history.’ - M. William Steele, Professor Emeritus, International Christian University
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments and Permissions List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction Lewis Bremner and Manimporok Dotulong Part 1: Visions of Civilisation 1 The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Opening of American Civilisation Samurai, Interracial Romance, and Southern Print Culture Natalia Doan 2 Laughing at Civilisation Charles Wirgman’s Japan Punch and the Reopening of Great Britain Warren A. Stanislaus 3 Minakata Kumagusu and the Microbial Turn in Theories of Evolution and Civilisation, 1887–1892 Eiko Honda Part 2: Life through the Opening 4 Opening the West with Japanese Mermaid Mummies Ningyo in the Making of the Theory of Evolution Mateja Kovacic 5 Hyakushō in the Arafura Zone Ecologising the Nineteenth-Century “Opening of Japan” Manimporok Dotulong 6 The Transformation of Magic Lantern Technology in Nineteenth Century Japan Lewis Bremner 7 Squaring Experiences with the Opening The Case of Yokoyama Matsusaburō Maki Fukuoka Part 3: From Particularity to Radical Universality 8 The Modern Closing of a Tokugawa-Era “Opening” The Early Modern Origins of an International Humanitarian Organisation Sho Konishi 9 A Defeated Samurai of the Boshin Civil War and the Search for a New Universalism Chinami Oka 10 Meiji Civil War Losers in Siam Miyazaki Tōten’s Utopian Farming Community (1877–1896) Joel Littler 11 The “Second Ishin” and Kunikida Doppo’s Misunderstood Nature Yu Sakai Part 4: Epilogue: Postwar Reflections 12 Something Like an Autobiography Akira Kurosawa on Free Pedagogy and Restoration of Japan’s Democratic Self Olga V. Solovieva Index
