Mito and the Politics of Reform in Early Modern Japan
Regular price
€40.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Michael Alan Thornton
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Michael Alan Thornton
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJF
Category=HBLL
Category=NHF
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
East Asian History
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Japanese History
Language_English
Local History
Meiji Restoration
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781793641915
- Weight: 426g
- Dimensions: 152 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 22 Aug 2023
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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.
Michael Alan Thornton is postdoctoral associate at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University.
