(no subject)
Marius B. Jansen and Gilbert Rozman, eds. Japan in Transition From Tokugawa to Meiji (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
Straight forward title for straight forward edited volume of seventeen essays, written in the wonderfully dry style we see out of a great many history books prior to 1990 (though I swear older American & European history books aren't as dry as a lot of the Japanese history).
A useful volume in bits and pieces, I think, though a bit overwhelming on the whole, mostly because there is a deluge of figures, charts, and statistics. 'Some stuff had a Tokugawa legacy, some stuff didn't, depends' seems to be the overarching theme. The book is divided into 4 sections: Administration, Organizations, Cities and Population, and Rural Economy & Material Conditions. Administration was probably the most useful (if broadest); the 'material conditions' section was most disappointing. I do question how much we can extrapolate from isolated statistics on a particular geographical area or political administrative unit; the 'snapshots' can be very useful, but how much does that tell us about 'Japan' as a whole? This is, of course, a field-wide problem and not confined to this book alone.
This book would've been quite useful as a preliminary text. However, having read detailed monographs on a number of these subjects, the short, dry essays weren't terribly useful. I do think specific chapters would be excellent to pull out and use as materials in a class where an entire monograph wouldn't be appropriate or would be overkill (e.g., the section on Buddhism in lieu of Ketelaar's book).
The more or less consistent editing style was helpful, and I (much as I hate to say this) think you could probably get a nice, quick, concise overview of the material contained within by reading the 'conclusion' section of each chapter and the introductory chapter of each section. These are the type of books that are great references to have on your shelf for when you need to see how education rates in Aomori changed between the Tokugawa and Meiji. For reading that really sticks with you in a coherent way? Well ....
Straight forward title for straight forward edited volume of seventeen essays, written in the wonderfully dry style we see out of a great many history books prior to 1990 (though I swear older American & European history books aren't as dry as a lot of the Japanese history).
A useful volume in bits and pieces, I think, though a bit overwhelming on the whole, mostly because there is a deluge of figures, charts, and statistics. 'Some stuff had a Tokugawa legacy, some stuff didn't, depends' seems to be the overarching theme. The book is divided into 4 sections: Administration, Organizations, Cities and Population, and Rural Economy & Material Conditions. Administration was probably the most useful (if broadest); the 'material conditions' section was most disappointing. I do question how much we can extrapolate from isolated statistics on a particular geographical area or political administrative unit; the 'snapshots' can be very useful, but how much does that tell us about 'Japan' as a whole? This is, of course, a field-wide problem and not confined to this book alone.
This book would've been quite useful as a preliminary text. However, having read detailed monographs on a number of these subjects, the short, dry essays weren't terribly useful. I do think specific chapters would be excellent to pull out and use as materials in a class where an entire monograph wouldn't be appropriate or would be overkill (e.g., the section on Buddhism in lieu of Ketelaar's book).
The more or less consistent editing style was helpful, and I (much as I hate to say this) think you could probably get a nice, quick, concise overview of the material contained within by reading the 'conclusion' section of each chapter and the introductory chapter of each section. These are the type of books that are great references to have on your shelf for when you need to see how education rates in Aomori changed between the Tokugawa and Meiji. For reading that really sticks with you in a coherent way? Well ....