Tokugawa Political Writings

An English edition of works by the great Japanese political thinker Ogyu Sorai.

Performing the Great Peace offers a cultural approach to understanding the politics of the Tokugawa period, at the same time deconstructing some of the assumptions of modern national historiographies. Deploying the political terms uchi (inside), omote (ritual interface), and naisho (informal negotiation)—all commonly used in the Tokugawa period—Luke Roberts explores how daimyo and the Tokugawa government understood political relations and managed politics in terms of spatial autonomy, ritual submission, and informal negotiation. Roberts suggests as well that a layered hierarchy of omote and uchi relations strongly influenced politics down to the village and household level, a method that clarifies many seeming anomalies in the Tokugawa order. He analyzes in one chapter how the identities of daimyo and domains differed according to whether they were facing the Tokugawa or speaking to members of the domain and daimyo household: For example, a large domain might be identified as a“country” by insiders and as a “private territory” in external discourse. In another chapter he investigates the common occurrence of daimyo who remained formally alive to the government months or even years after they had died in order that inheritance issues could be managed peacefully within their households. The operation of the court system in boundary disputes is analyzed as are the “illegal” enshrinements of daimyo inside domains that were sometimes used to construct forms of domain-state Shinto. Performing the Great Peace’s convincing analyses and insightful conceptual framework will benefit historians of not only the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, but Japan in general and others seeking innovative approaches to premodern history.

This study attempts to explain the development of Tokugawa-period political attitudes, as shown in the writings of the major thinkers of the time and as exemplified in the life of a nineteenth-century samurai. Emphasis is placed on attitudes toward emperor and nation, a subject that also involved the role of the Bakufu, or Tokugawa shogunate government.

H.D. Harootunian has provided a new preface for the paperback edition of his classic study Toward Restoration, the first intellectual history of the Meiji Restoration in English.

It was only at the onset of the Tokugawa period (1602-1868) that formal political thought emerged in Japan. Prior to that time Japanese scholars had concentrated, rather, on questions of legitimacy and authority in historical writing., producing a stream of works. Brownlee’s illuminating study describes twenty of these important historical works commencing with Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720) and ending with Tokushi Yoron (1712) by Arai Hakuseki. Historical writing would cease to be the sole vehicle for political discussion in Japan in the eighteenth century as Chinese Confucian thought became dominant. The author illustrates how the first works conceptualized history as imperial history and that subsequent scholars were unable to devise alternative schemes or patterns for history until Arai Hakuseki. Following the first histories, the central concern became the question of the relation of the Emperors to the new powers that arose. Brownlee examines the genre of Historical Tales and how it treated the Fujiwara Regents, the War Tales dealing with warriors at large, and specific works of historical argument depicting the Bakufu in relation to the Emperors. By interposing the works of Gukanshø (1219) by Jien, Jinnø Shøtøki (1339) by Kitabatake Chikafusa and Tokushi Yoron by Arai Hakuseki a clear pattern, demonstrating the sequential development of complexity and sophistication in handling the question, is revealed. Japanese political thought thus developed independently towards rationalism and secularism in early modern times.

A comprehensive study of changing political thought during the Tokugawa period, the book traces the philosophical roots of Japanese modernization. Professor Maruyama describes the role of Sorai Confucianism and Norinaga Shintoism in breaking the stagnant confines of Chu Hsi Confucianism, the underlying political philosophy of the Tokugawa feudal state. He shows how the new schools of thought created an intellectual climate in which the ideas and practices of modernization could thrive. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

These papers by leading specialists on sixteenth-century Japan explore Japan's transition from medieval (Chusei) to early modern (Kinsei) society. During this time, regional lords (daimyo) first battled for local autonomy and then for national supremacy. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Toward the end of his life, the Japanese Confucian thinker Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) wrote a memorandum entitled Seidan, Political Discourse, about the political and economic situation in Japan, probably at the request of the authorities and possibly the shogun, Yoshimune, himself. It is an extensive treatise which touches practically all fields of life around 1725-1727 and it is therefore a goldmine for anyone who wishes to acquaint himself with Japanese history in mid-Tokugawa times. The work was written in secrecy and it was therefore not known even by his students. It began to circulate in handwritten copies in the 1750s. Today it is a central work and a monument in the socalled keizaigaku genre of Japanese political-economic literature and is found in every collection of Tokugawa intellectual literature and referred to by all scholars who deal with Tokugawa history. The present work includes a full translation of the Seidan.