Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680 PDF Author: Lee Butler
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- The Struggle to Survive -- Normalcy and Its Pretenses -- Court Society During Reunification -- Unifiers and Aristocrats -- The Crises of 1609-1610 -- Codifying the Court -- Of Persons and Structures -- The Culture of a New Aristocracy -- Conclusion -- Character List of japanese Books Collected and Copied by Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1614-1615 -- Character List of Japanese Terms and Names -- Aristocratic Diaries of the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680 PDF Author: Lee Butler
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Get Book Here

Book Description
Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- The Struggle to Survive -- Normalcy and Its Pretenses -- Court Society During Reunification -- Unifiers and Aristocrats -- The Crises of 1609-1610 -- Codifying the Court -- Of Persons and Structures -- The Culture of a New Aristocracy -- Conclusion -- Character List of japanese Books Collected and Copied by Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1614-1615 -- Character List of Japanese Terms and Names -- Aristocratic Diaries of the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467–1680

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467–1680 PDF Author: Lee Butler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173663
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
An institution in decline, possessing little power in an age dominated by warriors? Or a still-potent symbol of social and political legitimacy? Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan traces the fate of the imperial Japanese court from its lowest point during the turbulent, century-long sengoku, when the old society, built upon the strength and influence of the court, the priesthood, and a narrow warrior elite, was shaken to its foundations, to the Tokugawa era, when court culture displayed renewed vitality, and tea gatherings, flower arranging, and architecture flourished. In determining how the court managed to persist and survive, Butler looks into contemporary documents, diaries, and letters to reveal the court's internal politics and protocols, hierarchies, finances, and ceremonial observances. Emperor and courtiers adjusted to the prominence of the warrior elite, even as they held on to the ideological advantages bestowed by birth, tradition, and culture. To this historical precedent the new wielders of power paid dutiful homage, ever mindful that ranks and titles, as well as the political blessing of the emperor, were advantageous marks of distinction.

Art and Palace Politics in Early Modern Japan, 1580s-1680s

Art and Palace Politics in Early Modern Japan, 1580s-1680s PDF Author: Elizabeth Lillehoj
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004211268
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
During the first century of Japan’s early modern era (1580s to 1680s), art and architecture created for the imperial court served as markers of social prestige, testifying to the enduring centrality of the palace to the cultural life of Kyoto. Emperors Go-Yōzei and Go-Mizunoo relied on financial support from ruling warlords—Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa shoguns—just as the warlords sought imperial sanction granting them legitimacy to rule. Taking advantage of this complex but oftentimes strained synergy, Go-Yōzei and Go-Mizunoo (and to an unprecedented exent his empress, Tōfukumon’in) enhanced the heriditary prerogatives of the imperial family. Among the works described in this volume are masterpieces commissioned for the residences and temples of the imperial family, which were painted by artists of the Kano, Tosa and Sumiyoshi ateliers, not to mention Tawaraya Sōtatsu. Anonymous but deluxe painting commissions depicting grand imperial processions are examined in detail. The court’s fascination with calligraphy and tea, arts that flourished in this age, is also discussed in this profusely illustrated volume.

Enigma of the Emperors

Enigma of the Emperors PDF Author: Ben-Ami Shillony
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004213996
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This important new and original study on the institution of the Japanese emperors focuses on the enigma of the institution itself, namely, the extraordinary continuity of the Japanese dynasty, which is unknown anywhere else in the world, yet which is now at risk on account of more recent laws of succession.

Sailor Diplomat

Sailor Diplomat PDF Author: Peter Mauch
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
As Japan’s pre–Pearl Harbor ambassador to the United States, Admiral Nomura Kichisaburo (1877–1964) played a significant role in a tense and turbulent period in Japanese–U.S. relations. Scholars tend to view his actions and missteps as ambassador as representing the failure of diplomacy to avert the outbreak of hostilities between the two paramount Pacific powers.This extensively researched biography casts new light on the life and career of this important figure. Connecting his experiences as a naval officer to his service as foreign minister and ambassador, and later as “father” of Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces and proponent of the U.S.–Japanese alliance, this study reassesses Nomura’s contributions as a hard-nosed realist whose grasp of the underlying realities of Japanese–U.S. relations went largely unappreciated by the Japanese political and military establishment.

A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place PDF Author: David Spafford
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"A Sense of Place examines the vast Kantō region as a locus of cultural identity and an object of familial attachment during the political and military turmoil of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Japan. Through analysis of memoirs, letters, chronicles, poetry, travelogues, lawsuits, land registers, and archeological reports, David Spafford explores the relationships of the eastern elites to the space they inhabited: he considers the region both as a whole, in its literary representations and political and administrative dimensions, and as an aggregation of discrete locales, where struggles over land rights played out alongside debates about the meaning of ties between families and their holdings. Spafford also provides the first historical account in English of medieval castle building and the castellan revolution of the late fifteenth century, which militarized the countryside and radically transformed the exercise of authority over territory. Simultaneously, the book reinforces a sense of the eastern elite’s anxieties and priorities, detailing how, in their relation to land and place, local elites displayed a preference for past precedent and inherited wisdom. Even amidst the changes wrought by war, this inclination, although quite at odds with their conventional reputation for ruthless pragmatism and forward thinking, prevailed."

The People’s Post Office

The People’s Post Office PDF Author: Patricia L. Maclachlan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
"In 2001, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō launched a crusade to privatize Japan’s postal services. The plan was hailed as a necessary structural reform, but many bemoaned the loss of traditional institutions and the conservative values they represented. Few expected the plan to succeed, given the staunch opposition of diverse parties, but four years later it appeared that Koizumi had transformed not only the post office but also the very institutional and ideological foundations of Japanese finance and politics. By all accounts, it was one of the most astonishing political achievements in postwar Japanese history. Patricia L. Maclachlan analyzes the interplay among the institutions, interest groups, and leaders involved in the system’s evolution from the early Meiji period until 2010. Exploring the postal system’s remarkable range of economic, social, and cultural functions and its institutional relationship to the Japanese state, this study shows how the post office came to play a leading role in the country’s political development. It also looks into the future to assess the resilience of Koizumi’s reforms and consider the significance of lingering opposition to the privatization of one of Japan’s most enduring social and political sanctuaries."

Toward a History Beyond Borders

Toward a History Beyond Borders PDF Author: Daqing Yang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
"This volume brings to English-language readers the results of an important long-term project of historians from China and Japan addressing contentious issues in their shared modern histories. Originally published simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese in 2006, the thirteen essays in this collection focus renewed attention on a set of political and historiographical controversies that have steered and stymied Sino-Japanese relations from the mid-nineteenth century through World War II to the present. These in-depth contributions explore a range of themes, from prewar diplomatic relations and conflicts, to wartime collaboration and atrocity, to postwar commemorations and textbook debates—all while grappling with the core issue of how history has been researched, written, taught, and understood in both countries. In the context of a wider trend toward cross-national dialogues over historical issues, this volume can be read as both a progress report and a case study of the effort to overcome contentious problems of history in East Asia."

Empires on the Waterfront

Empires on the Waterfront PDF Author: Catherine L. Phipps
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"Empires on the Waterfront offers a new spatial framework for understanding Japan’s extended transition into the modern world of nation-states. This study examines a largely unacknowledged system of “special trading ports” that operated under full Japanese jurisdiction in the shadow of the better-known treaty ports. By allowing Japan to circumvent conditions imposed on treaty ports, the special trading ports were key to achieving autonomy and regional power. Catherine L. Phipps uses an overtly geographic approach to demonstrate that the establishment of Japan’s maritime networks depended on initiatives made and carried out on multiple geographical scales—global, national, and local. The story of the special trading ports unfolds in these three dimensions. Through an in-depth assessment of the port of Moji in northern Kyushu, Empires on the Waterfront recasts the rise of Japan’s own empire as a process deeply embedded in the complicated system of maritime relations in East Asia during the pivotal second half of the nineteenth century."

Defensive Positions

Defensive Positions PDF Author: Noell Wilson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Defensive Positions focuses on the role of regional domains in early modern Japan’s coastal defense, shedding new light on this system’s development. This examination, in turn, has significant long-term political implications for the involvement of those domains in Tokugawa state formation. Noell Wilson argues that domainal autonomy in executing maritime defense slowly escalated over the course of the Tokugawa period to the point where the daimyo ultimately challenged Tokugawa authorities as the primary military interface with the outside world. By first exploring localized maritime defense at Nagasaki and then comparing its organization with those of the Yokohama and Hakodate harbors during the treaty port era, Wilson identifies new, core systemic sources for the collapse of the shogunate’s control of the monopoly on violence. Her insightful analysis reveals how the previously unexamined system of domain-managed coastal defense comprised a critical third element—in addition to trade and diplomacy—of Tokugawa external relations. Domainal control of coastal defense exacerbated the shogunate’s inability to respond to important military and political challenges as Japan transitioned from an early modern system of parcelized, local maritime defense to one of centralized, national security as embraced by world powers in the nineteenth century.