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Mito and the Politics of Reform in Early Modern Japan
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2022
Summary
This book examines early modern Mito, today an ordinary provincial capital on the outskirts of the Tokyo commuter belt, but once the headquarters of Mito Domain, one of the most consequential places in all of Japan. As one of just three senior branches of the Tokugawa family—which ruled over Japan for 260 years—Mito’s ruling family enjoyed unparalleled status and exerted enormous influence throughout its history. In the seventeenth century, its scholars produced some of early modern Japan’s most important historical scholarship. In the eighteenth century, it developed a robust and pragmatic program of reform to confront depopulation and foreign threats. In the nineteenth century, it became the birthplace of a revolutionary ideology that transformed Japan into a modern, imperial nation. The power of these ideas swept across Japan, inspiring activists everywhere to take up the cause of building a new nation—but they also devastated Mito, leading to a brutal civil war that scarred its people for generations. This book complements existing studies of Mito’s ideas by focusing on the history of Mito as a place and telling the stories of Mito’s politicians, reformers, and ordinary people from the beginning of the domain’s history to its end.
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Bibliographic data
Edition
1/2022
Copyright year
2022
ISBN-Print
978-1-7936-4189-2
ISBN-Online
978-1-7936-4190-8
Publisher
Lexington, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
250
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Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Foreword No access
Acknowledgments No access
A Note on Names and Dates No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 14
Chapter One. The Origins of Mito Domain and Tokugawa Mitsukuni’s “Golden Age” No access Pages 15 - 50
Chapter Two. Eighteenth-Century Mito: Crisis, Reform, and the Birth of the Late Mito School No access Pages 51 - 80
Chapter Three. “Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian”: Mito in the Age of Imperialism No access Pages 81 - 118
Chapter Four. The Politics of Mito’s Tenpō Reforms No access Pages 119 - 154
Chapter Five. Nariaki, Yoshinobu, and the Birth of Modern Japan No access Pages 155 - 188
Chapter Six. The Violent Restoration: Civil War and the End of Mito Domain No access Pages 189 - 216
Conclusion. Mito and Modern Japan No access Pages 217 - 230
