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The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony (Hardcover, New)
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The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony (Hardcover, New)
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In the major literature on early modern Japan, the sakoku (closed
country) edicts lurk in the background, and while scholars are
generally aware of the major tenets of the policy, for example, the
inability of Japanese to travel abroad or the clampdown on
Christianity, the specifics of the edicts have yet to be studied in
detail despite its potential to reveal much about this era of
Japan's history. This work seeks to clarify the seventeen-article
sakoku edicts of 1635 as well as to situate the edicts in the
general foreign policy of seventeenth-century Edo Japan. This book
will also examine a number of other policies that evolved in the
first half of the seventeenth century to complete what is commonly
(and somewhat erroneously) referred to as the "closed-country
period." A great number of works on European and Chinese
interactions with Japan have appeared over the past few decades,
and most of them have done a fine job of dispensing with the myth
that Japan was somehow hermetically sealed from the outside world.
Scholars are aware that the Dutch played a large role in keeping
the shogun informed about affairs in Europe, and that the Chinese
were coming to Japan in ever greater numbers. They are also aware
of the relationship between Japan and Korea. However, the fact
remains that the Tokugawa did take pains to regulate the
interactions of Europeans with Japan, and these measures are
generally found in the various edicts passed by the bakufu in the
first half of the seventeenth century. This book translates and
illuminates the specific machinery of Japan's foreign relations,
especially as it pertained to European trade and Christianity. In
so doing, this study will situate the edicts--which are largely
taken for granted, even though little has been studied--in Japan's
early modern history. There are two insights this book presents.
First of all, the study will demonstrate that the sakoku edicts
were not a monolithic piece of legislation, but rather they evolved
over time. The edicts against Christianity, the expulsion of the
Spanish and the Portuguese, and the establishment of the machinery
to regulate foreign trade were all responses to historical stimuli,
and as such evolved in response to Japan's interactions with Europe
and European trade and ideas. Second, this work will show that,
ironically, the Tokugawa control of Japan's foreign policy was
meant to strengthen its domestic control, especially vis-a-vis the
powerful daimyo of western Japan, who traditionally profited with
relations with the West. Therefore, there is much more to the
sakoku edicts than simply the regulation of Japan's relations with
foreigners. This book will appeal to the wider academic community
working on pre-modern and early modern Japan. It will also be of
value to those whose work involves the expansion of Europe into
Asia, as well as European-Asian interactions. Written in a highly
accessible style, this book will be of interest to even the casual
reader of Japanese history.
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