Description
Book SynopsisThe chapters in this volume variously challenge a number of long-standing assumptions regarding eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese society, and especially that society’s values, structure and hierarchy; the practical limits of state authority; and the emergence of individual and collective identity. By interrogating the concept of equality on both sides of the 1868 divide, the volume extends this discussion beyond the late-Tokugawa period into the early-Meiji and even into the present. An Epilogue examines some of the historiographical issues that form a background to this enquiry. Taken together, the chapters offer answers and perspectives that are highly original and should prove stimulating to all those interested in early modern Japanese cultural, intellectual, and social history Contributors include: Daniel Botsman, W. Puck Brecher, Gideon Fujiwara, Eiko Ikegami, Jun’ichi Isomae, James E. Ketelaar, Yasunori Kojima, Peter Nosco, Naoki Sakai, Gregory Smits, M. William Steele, and Anne Walthall.
Trade Review"the volume is very well edited, and the division of the papers into four parts makes the reading comfortable.(...) The volume under review is undeniably a major publication in the field of social and cultural history of early modern and modern Japan." Annick Horiuchi, Université Paris Diderot, Monumenta NIpponica 72:1 (2017) "The collection of essays that Peter Nosco, James Ketelaar, and Yasunori Kojima have assembled in this volume will disorient most, surprise many, [End Page 139] and hopefully inspire a few.(...) The methodological eclecticism and thematic variety of this collection of essays promise to give visibility to this volume; its experimentalism is indeed an appropriate strategy to encourage young scholars to engage with "big questions" in the current predicament of theoretical inertia. (...) I ardently hope the book finds a wide readership among undergraduate and graduate students worldwide, as I am sure it will inspire new investigations and new theoretical reflections. The Nietzschean untimeliness of this project is a plea to young scholars to never shy away from big questions." Federico Marcon, Princeton University, The Journal of Japanese Studies, 45:1 (2019).
