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Chinese History and Culture: Seventeenth Century Through Twentieth Century

Ying-shih Yü

The recipient of the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities, Ying-shih Yü is a premier scholar of Chinese studies. Chinese History and Culture volumes 1 and 2 bring his extraordinary ... More

The recipient of the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities, Ying-shih Yü is a premier scholar of Chinese studies. Chinese History and Culture volumes 1 and 2 bring his extraordinary oeuvre to English-speaking readers. Spanning two thousand years of social, intellectual, and political change, the essays in these volumes investigate two central questions through all aspects of Chinese life: what core values sustained this ancient civilization through centuries of upheaval, and in what ways did these values survive in modern times?Less

Chinese History and Culture: Sixth Century B.C.E. to Seventeenth Century

Ying-shih Yü

The recipient of the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities, Ying-shih Yü is a premier scholar of Chinese studies. Chinese History and Culture volumes 1 and 2 bring his extraordinary ... More

The recipient of the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities, Ying-shih Yü is a premier scholar of Chinese studies. Chinese History and Culture volumes 1 and 2 bring his extraordinary oeuvre to English-speaking readers. Spanning two thousand years of social, intellectual, and political change, the essays in these volumes investigate two central questions through all aspects of Chinese life: what core values sustained this ancient civilization through centuries of upheaval, and in what ways did these values survive in modern times? From Yü Ying-shih’s perspective, the Dao, or the Way, constitutes the inner core of Chinese civilization. His work explores the unique dynamics between Chinese intellectuals’ discourse on the Dao, or moral principles for a symbolized ideal world order, and their criticism of contemporary reality throughout Chinese history. Volume 1 of Chinese History and Culture explores how the Dao was reformulated, expanded, defended, and preserved by Chinese intellectuals up to the seventeenth century, guiding them through history’s darkest turns. Essays incorporate the evolving conception of the soul and the afterlife in pre- and post-Buddhist China, the significance of eating practices and social etiquette, the move toward greater individualism, the rise of the Neo-Daoist movement, the spread of Confucian ethics, and the growth of merchant culture and capitalism. A true panorama of Chinese culture’s continuities and transition, Yü Ying-shih’s two-volume Chinese History and Culture gives readers of all backgrounds a unique education in the meaning of Chinese civilization.Less

The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China

Guobin Yang

Raised to be “flowers of the nation,” the first generation born after the founding of the People’s Republic of China was united in its political outlook and at first embraced the Cultural Revolution ... More

Raised to be “flowers of the nation,” the first generation born after the founding of the People’s Republic of China was united in its political outlook and at first embraced the Cultural Revolution of 1966, but then split into warring factions. Investigating the causes of this fracture, Guobin Yang argues that Chinese youth engaged in an imaginary revolution from 1966 to 1968, enacting a political mythology that encouraged violence as a way to prove one’s revolutionary credentials. This same competitive dynamic would later turn the Red Guard against the communist government. Throughout the 1970s, the majority of Red Guard youth were sent to work in rural villages, where they developed an appreciation for the values of ordinary life. From this experience, an underground cultural movement was born. Rejecting idolatry, these relocated revolutionaries developed a new form of resistance that signaled a new era of enlightenment, culminating in the Democracy Wall movement of the late 1970s and the Tiananmen protest of 1989. Yang’s final chapter on the politics of history and memory argues that contemporary memories of the Cultural Revolution are factionalized along these lines of political division, formed fifty years before.Less

The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation

JaHyun Kim Haboush

William J. Haboush and Jisoo Kim (eds)

The Imjin War (1592–1598) was a grueling conflict that wreaked havoc on the towns and villages of the Korean Peninsula. The involvement of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean forces, not to mention the ... More

The Imjin War (1592–1598) was a grueling conflict that wreaked havoc on the towns and villages of the Korean Peninsula. The involvement of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean forces, not to mention the regional scope of the war, was the largest the world had seen, and the memory dominated East Asian memory until World War II. Despite massive regional realignments, Korea’s Chosôn Dynasty endured, but within its polity a new, national discourse began to emerge. Meant to inspire civilians to rise up against the Japanese army, this potent rhetoric conjured a unified Korea and intensified after the Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1636. By documenting this phenomenon, JaHyun Kim Haboush offers a compelling counternarrative to Western historiography, which ties Korea’s idea of nation to the imported ideologies of modern colonialism. She instead elevates the formative role of the conflicts that defined the second half of the Chosôn Dynasty, which had transfigured the geopolitics of East Asia and introduced a national narrative key to Korea’s survival. Re-creating the cultural and political passions that bound Chosôn society together during this period, Haboush reclaims the root story of solidarity that helped Korea thrive well into the modern era.Less

The Capitalist Unconscious: From Korean Unification to Transnational Korea

Hyun Ok Park

The unification of North and South Korea is widely considered an unresolved and volatile matter for the global order, but this book argues capital has already unified Korea in a transnational form. ... More

The unification of North and South Korea is widely considered an unresolved and volatile matter for the global order, but this book argues capital has already unified Korea in a transnational form. As Hyun Ok Park demonstrates, rather than territorial integration and family union, the capitalist unconscious drives the current unification, imagining the capitalist integration of the Korean peninsula and the Korean diaspora as a new democratic moment. Based on extensive archival and ethnographic research in South Korea and China, The Capitalist Unconscious shows how the hegemonic democratic politics of the post-Cold War era (reparation, peace, and human rights) have consigned the rights of migrant laborers—protagonists of transnational Korea—to identity politics, constitutionalism, and cosmopolitanism. Park reveals the riveting capitalist logic of these politics, which underpins legal and policy debates, social activism, and media spectacle. While rethinking the historical trajectory of Cold War industrialism and its subsequent liberal path, this book also probes memories of such key events as the North Korean and Chinese revolutions, which are integral to migrants’ reckoning with capitalist allures and communal possibilities. Casting capitalist democracy within an innovative framework of historical repetition, Park elucidates the form and content of the capitalist unconscious at different historical moments and dissolves the modern opposition among socialism, democracy, and dictatorship. The Capitalist Unconscious astutely explores the neoliberal present’s past and introduces a compelling approach to the question of history and contemporaneity.Less

Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers

Norman Rothschild

This book looks at the reign of Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu, the only woman to have ruled China over the course of its 5,000-year history. It asks how she rose to power ... More

This book looks at the reign of Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu, the only woman to have ruled China over the course of its 5,000-year history. It asks how she rose to power and why she was never overthrown. The book explores a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries and suggests that Wu Zhao drew on China's rich pantheon of female divinities and eminent women to aid in her reign. The book explains that, although Wu Zhao could not obtain political authority through conventional channels, she could afford to ignore norms and traditions. It shows that she deployed language, symbols, and ideology to harness the cultural resonance, maternal force, divine energy, and historical weight of Buddhist devis, Confucian exemplars, Daoist immortals, and mythic goddesses, so establishing legitimacy within and beyond the confines of Confucian ideology. It describes how Wu Zhao tapped into deep, powerful, subterranean reservoirs of female power to build a pantheon of female divinities carefully calibrated to meet her needs at court. The book details how the Empress' pageant was promoted in scripted rhetoric, reinforced through poetry, celebrated in theatrical productions and inscribed on steles. It concludes that her strategy is a model of political brilliance and proof that medieval Chinese women enjoyed a more complex social status than previously known.Less

Marching Through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea

Sandra Fahy

This book presents a personal portrait of the ravages of famine and totalitarian politics in modern North Korea since the 1990s. Featuring interviews with more than thirty North Koreans who defected ... More

This book presents a personal portrait of the ravages of famine and totalitarian politics in modern North Korea since the 1990s. Featuring interviews with more than thirty North Koreans who defected to Seoul and Tokyo, the book explores the subjective experience of the nation's famine and its citizens' social and psychological strategies for coping with the regime. These oral testimonies show how ordinary North Koreans, from farmers and soldiers to students and diplomats, framed the mounting struggles and deaths surrounding them as the famine progressed. Following the development of the disaster, North Koreans deployed complex discursive strategies to rationalize the horror and hardship in their lives, practices that maintained citizens' loyalty to the regime during the famine and continue to sustain its rule today. Casting North Koreans as a diverse people with a vast capacity for adaptation rather than a monolithic entity passively enduring oppression, the text positions personal history as a critical lens for interpreting political violence.Less

Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army

Phyllis Birnbaum

Aisin Gioro Xianyu (1907–1948) was the fourteenth daughter of a Manchu prince and a legendary figure in China's bloody struggle with Japan. After the fall of the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1912, Xianyu's ... More

Aisin Gioro Xianyu (1907–1948) was the fourteenth daughter of a Manchu prince and a legendary figure in China's bloody struggle with Japan. After the fall of the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1912, Xianyu's father gave his daughter to a Japanese friend who was sympathetic to his efforts to reclaim power. This man raised Xianyu, now known as Kawashima Yoshiko, to restore the Manchus to their former glory. Her fearsome dedication to this cause ultimately got her killed. Yoshiko had a fiery personality and loved the limelight. She shocked Japanese society by dressing in men's clothes and rose to prominence as Commander Jin, touted in Japan's media as a new Joan of Arc. Boasting a short, handsome haircut and a genuine military uniform, Commander Jin was credited with many daring exploits, among them riding horseback as leader of her own army during the Japanese occupation of China. While trying to promote the Manchus, Yoshiko supported the puppet Manchu state established by the Japanese in 1932—one reason she was executed for treason after Japan's 1945 defeat. The truth of Yoshiko's life is still a source of contention between China and Japan: some believe she was exploited by powerful men, others claim she relished her role as political provocateur. China holds her responsible for unspeakable crimes, while Japan has forgiven her transgressions. This biography presents the richest and most accurate portrait to date of the controversial princess spy, recognizing her truly novel role in conflicts that transformed East Asia.Less

Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People

Yoshimi Yoshiaki

This book profiles the Asia Pacific War (1937–1945)—the most important though least understood experience of Japan's modern history—through the lens of ordinary Japanese life. Moving deftly from the ... More

This book profiles the Asia Pacific War (1937–1945)—the most important though least understood experience of Japan's modern history—through the lens of ordinary Japanese life. Moving deftly from the struggles of the home front to the occupied territories to the ravages of the front line, the book offers rare insights into popular experiences from the war's troubled beginnings through Japan's disastrous defeat in 1945 and the new beginning it heralded. This book mobilizes diaries, letters, memoirs, and government documents to portray the ambivalent position of ordinary Japanese as both wartime victims and active participants. It also provides penetrating accounts of the war experiences of Japan's minorities and imperial subjects, including Koreans and Taiwanese. This book challenges the idea that the Japanese people operated as a mere conduit for the military during the war, passively accepting an imperial ideology imposed upon them by the political elite. Viewed from the bottom up, wartime Japan unfolds as a complex modern mass society, with a corresponding variety of popular roles and agendas. In chronicling the diversity of wartime Japanese social experience, this account elevates our understanding of “Japanese Fascism.” In its relation of World War II to the evolution—and destruction—of empire, it makes a contribution to the global history of the war.Less

Memories of Mount Qilai: The Education of a Young Poet

Mu Yang

Hualien, on the Pacific coast of eastern Taiwan, and its mountains, especially Mount Qilai, were deeply inspirational for the young poet who is the author of this book. A place of immense natural ... More

Hualien, on the Pacific coast of eastern Taiwan, and its mountains, especially Mount Qilai, were deeply inspirational for the young poet who is the author of this book. A place of immense natural beauty and cultural heterogeneity, the city was also a site of extensive social, political, and cultural change in the twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and the American bombings of World War II to the Chinese Civil War, the White Terror, and the Cold War. Taken as a whole, these evocative and allusive autobiographical essays provide a personal response to history as Taiwan transitioned from a Japanese colony to the Republic of China. The author recounts his childhood experiences under the Japanese, life in the mountains in proximity to indigenous people as his family took refuge from the American bombings, his initial encounters and cultural conflicts with Nationalist soldiers recently arrived from mainland China, the subsequent activities of the Nationalist government to consolidate power, and the island's burgeoning new manufacturing society. Nevertheless, throughout those early years, the author remained anchored by a sense of place on Taiwan's eastern coast and amid its coastal mountains, over which stands Mount Qilai like a guardian spirit. This was the formative milieu of the young poet. He seized on verse to develop a distinct persona and draw meaning from the currents of change reshuffling his world. The book creates an exciting, subjective realm meant to transcend the personal and historical limitations of the individual and the end of culture, “plundered and polluted by politics and industry long ago.”Less

Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life

Jie Li

In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account—part microhistory, part memoir—the text salvages intimate recollections by successive ... More

In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account—part microhistory, part memoir—the text salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways from the Republican, Maoist, and post-Mao eras. Exploring three dimensions of private life—territories, artifacts, and gossip—the book re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century. First built by British and Japanese companies in 1915 and 1927, the two homes at the center of this narrative were located in an industrial part of the former “International Settlement.” Before their recent demolition, they were nestled in Shanghai's labyrinthine alleyways, which housed more than half of the city's population from the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution. Through interviews with family members as well as their neighbors, classmates, and co-workers, the author of this book weaves a complex social tapestry reflecting the lived experiences of ordinary people struggling to absorb and adapt to major historical change. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who all fought for a foothold and haven in this city, witnessing spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories.Less

Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro

Sarah Jacoby

This book reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro Künzang Dekyong Chönyi Wangmo (also called Dewé ... More

This book reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro Künzang Dekyong Chönyi Wangmo (also called Dewé Dorjé, 1892–1940) was extraordinary not only for achieving religious mastery as a Tibetan Buddhist visionary and guru to many lamas, monastics, and laity in the Golok region of eastern Tibet, but also for her candor. This book listens to Sera Khandro's conversations with land deities, ḍākinīs, bodhisattvas, lamas, and fellow religious community members whose voices interweave with her own to narrate what is a story of both love between Sera Khandro and her guru, Drimé Özer, and spiritual liberation. The book focuses on the status of the female body in Sera Khandro's texts, the virtue of celibacy versus the expediency of sexuality for religious purposes, and the difference between profane lust and sacred love between male and female tantric partners. Her findings add new dimensions to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist consort practices, complicating standard scriptural presentations of male subject and female aide. Sera Khandro depicts herself and Drimé Özer as inseparable embodiments of insight and method that together form the Vajrayāna Buddhist vision of complete buddhahood. By advancing this complementary sacred partnership, Sera Khandro carved a place for herself as a female virtuoso in the male-dominated sphere of early twentieth-century Tibetan religion.Less

Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590-2010: Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Siberia

Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb

Four hundred years ago, indigenous peoples occupied the vast region that today encompasses Korea, Manchuria, the Mongolian Plateau, and Eastern Siberia. Over time, these populations struggled to ... More

Four hundred years ago, indigenous peoples occupied the vast region that today encompasses Korea, Manchuria, the Mongolian Plateau, and Eastern Siberia. Over time, these populations struggled to maintain autonomy as Russia, China, and Japan sought hegemony over the region. Especially from the turn of the twentieth century onward, indigenous peoples pursued self-determination in a number of ways, and new states, many of them now largely forgotten, rose and fell as great power imperialism, indigenous nationalism, and modern ideologies competed for dominance. This book tracks the political configuration of Northeast Asia in ten-year segments from 1590 to 1890, in five-year segments from 1890 to 1960, and in ten-year segments from 1960 to 2010, delineating the distinct history and importance of the region. The text follows the rise and fall of the Qing dynasty in China, founded by the semi-nomadic Manchus; the Russian colonization of Siberia; the growth of Japanese influence; the movements of peoples, armies, and borders; and political, social, and economic developments—reflecting the turbulence of the land that was once the world's “cradle of conflict.” Compiled from detailed research in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Dutch, German, Mongolian, and Russian sources, this text incorporates information made public with the fall of the Soviet Union and includes fifty-five specially drawn maps, as well as twenty historical maps contrasting local and outsider perspectives. Four introductory maps survey the region's diverse topography, climate, vegetation, and ethnicity.Less

The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life in Eleventh-Century Japan

A thousand years ago, a young Japanese girl embarked on a journey from the wild East Country to the capital. She began a diary that she would continue to write for the next forty years and compile ... More

A thousand years ago, a young Japanese girl embarked on a journey from the wild East Country to the capital. She began a diary that she would continue to write for the next forty years and compile later in life, bringing lasting prestige to her family. Some aspects of the her life and text seem curiously modern. She married at age thirty-three and identified herself as a reader and writer more than as a wife and mother. Enthralled by romantic fiction, she wrote extensively about the disillusioning blows that reality can deal to fantasy. This book is a portrait of the writer as reader and an exploration of the power of reading to shape one's expectations and aspirations. As a person and an author, this writer presages the medieval era in Japan with her deep concern for Buddhist belief and practice. Her narrative's main thread follows a trajectory from youthful infatuation with romantic fantasy to the disillusionment of age and concern for the afterlife; yet, at the same time, many passages erase the dichotomy between literary illusion and spiritual truth. This new translation captures the lyrical richness of the original text while revealing its subtle structure and ironic meaning. The introduction highlights the poetry in book and the juxtaposition of poetic passages and narrative prose, which brings meta-meanings into play. The translator's commentary offers insight into the author's family and world, as well as the fascinating textual legacy of her work.Less

DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border

Suk-Young Kim

This book focuses on a diverse selection of people who have crossed the border between North and South Korea and also assesses the citizenship they acquire based on emotional affiliation rather than ... More

This book focuses on a diverse selection of people who have crossed the border between North and South Korea and also assesses the citizenship they acquire based on emotional affiliation rather than constitutional delineation. It details how these individuals use their physical bodies and emotions as “optimal frontiers,” and shows how they resist the state's right to draw geopolitical borders and define their national identities. It highlights the fact that, although the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) is one of the most heavily guarded places on earth, it also provides passage for thousands of defectors, spies, political emissaries, war prisoners, activists, tourists and others testing the limits of Korean division. The book draws on sources that range from North Korean documentary films, museum exhibitions, and theatre productions. It also uses protester perspectives and interviews with South Korean officials and activists. In this way, it recasts the history of Korean division and draws a nuanced portrait of the region's Cold War legacies. The book ultimately helps readers conceive of the DMZ as a dynamic summation of personalized experiences rather than as a fixed site of historical significance.Less

Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China

Hans van de Ven

This book describes the role of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, assesses the influence it had on Chinese history and society, and shows how it transformed China's relationship with the world. ... More

This book describes the role of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, assesses the influence it had on Chinese history and society, and shows how it transformed China's relationship with the world. It explains how, between its founding in 1854 and its collapse in 1952, the Service delivered one-third to one-half of all revenue collected by China's central authorities. The book shows that the service was much more than a tax collector—it also managed China's harbours, erected lighthouses, surveyed the Chinese coast, and pioneered China's modern postal system. The book also follows the activities of the Inspectors General, who were virtual autocrats within the Service and who communicated regularly with senior Chinese officials and foreign diplomats. The book assesses the Service's impact on historical events such as the Sino-French War, the Boxer Rebellion, the 1911 Revolution, and the rise of the Nationalists in the 1920s. It shows how the Service was pivotal to China's post-Taiping integration into the world of modern nation-states and twentieth-century trade and finance. It argues that the Service introduced the modern governance of trade to China, made Chinese legible to foreign audiences, and that it often kept China together when little else did.Less

Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai

Mark Teeuwen and Kate Wildman Nakai (eds)

By 1816, Japan had recovered from the famines of the 1780s and moved beyond the political reforms of the 1790s. Despite persistent economic and social stresses, the country seemed to be approaching a ... More

By 1816, Japan had recovered from the famines of the 1780s and moved beyond the political reforms of the 1790s. Despite persistent economic and social stresses, the country seemed to be approaching a new period of growth. The idea that the shogunate would not last forever was far from anyone's mind. Yet, in that year, an anonymous samurai author completed one of the most detailed critiques of Edo society known today. Writing as Buyō Inshi, “a retired gentleman of Edo,” he expresses a profound despair with the state of the realm and with people's behavior and attitudes. He sees decay wherever he turns and believes the world will soon descend into war. Buyō shows a familiarity with many corners of Edo life that one might not expect in a samurai. He describes the corruption of samurai officials; the suffering of the poor in villages and cities; the operation of brothels; the dealings of blind moneylenders; the selling and buying of temple abbotships; and the dubious strategies townspeople use in the law courts. Perhaps the frankness of his account, which contains a wealth of concrete information about Edo society, made him prefer to remain anonymous. This book contains a full translation of Buyō's often-quoted but rarely studied work by a team of specialists on Edo society. Together with extensive annotation of the translation, the book includes an introduction that situates the text culturally and historically.Less

Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang

Anne Behnke Kinney

In early China, was it correct for a woman to disobey her father, contradict her husband, or shape the public policy of a son who ruled over a dynasty or state? According to the Lienü zhuan, or ... More

In early China, was it correct for a woman to disobey her father, contradict her husband, or shape the public policy of a son who ruled over a dynasty or state? According to the Lienü zhuan, or Categorized Biographies of Women, it was not only appropriate but necessary for women to step in with wise counsel when fathers, husbands, or rulers strayed from the path of virtue. Compiled toward the end of the Former Han dynasty (202 bce–9 ce) by Liu Xiang (79–8 bce), the Lienü zhuan is the earliest extant book in the Chinese tradition solely devoted to women's education. Far from providing a unified vision of women's roles, the text promotes a diverse and sometimes contradictory range of practices. At one extreme are exemplars resorting to suicide and self-mutilation as a means to preserve chastity and ritual orthodoxy. At the other are bold and outspoken women whose rhetorical mastery helps correct erring rulers, sons, and husbands. The text provides a fascinating overview of the representation of women's roles in early legends, formal speeches on statecraft, and highly fictionalized historical accounts during this foundational period of Chinese history. Over time, the biographies of women became a regular feature of dynastic and local histories and a vehicle for expressing and transmitting concerns about women's social, political, and domestic roles. The Lienü zhuan is also rich in information about the daily life, rituals, and domestic concerns of early China.Less

The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan

Adam Clulow

The Dutch East India Company was a hybrid organization combining the characteristics of both corporation and state that attempted to thrust itself aggressively into an Asian political order in which ... More

The Dutch East India Company was a hybrid organization combining the characteristics of both corporation and state that attempted to thrust itself aggressively into an Asian political order in which it possessed no obvious place and was transformed in the process. This book focuses on the company's clashes with Tokugawa, Japan, over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. In each encounter the Dutch were forced to retreat, compelled to abandon their claims to sovereign powers, and to refashion themselves again and again—from subjects of a fictive king to loyal vassals of the shogun, from aggressive pirates to meek merchants, and from insistent defenders of colonial sovereignty to legal subjects of the Tokugawa state. Within the confines of these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun first took shape and were subsequently set into what would become their permanent form. The first book to treat the Dutch East India Company in Japan as something more than just a commercial organization, it presents new perspective on one of the most important, long-lasting relationships to develop between an Asian state and a European overseas enterprise.Less

An Encouragement of Learning

Yukichi Fukuzawa

The intellectual and social theorist Yukichi Fukuzawa wrote An Encouragement of Learning (1872–1876) as a series of pamphlets while completing his critical masterpiece, An Outline of a Theory of ... More

The intellectual and social theorist Yukichi Fukuzawa wrote An Encouragement of Learning (1872–1876) as a series of pamphlets while completing his critical masterpiece, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (1875). These closely linked texts illustrate the core tenets of his philosophical outlook: freedom and equality as inherent to human nature, independence as the goal of any individual and nation, and the transformation of the Japanese mind as key to advancing in a rapidly evolving political and cultural world. In these essays, Fukuzawa advocated for the adoption of Western modes of education to help the Japanese people build a modern nation. He also believed that human beings’ treatment of one another extended to and was reflected in their government’s behavior, echoing the work of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and other Western thinkers in a classically structured Eastern text. This book translates the full text into English and includes a chronology of Japanese history as it relates to Fukuzawa and his work. An introduction provides additional background on the life and influence of this profound thinker, and a selection of representative writings and suggestions for further reading fully introduce readers to the rare brilliance of his thought.Less