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Civil Society and Government
Civil Society and Government brings together an unprecedented array of political, ethical, and religious perspectives to shed light on the complex and much-debated relationship between civil society and the state. Some argue that civil society is a bulwark against government; others see it as an indispensable support for government. Civil society has been portrayed both as a independent of the state and as dependent upon it. This book reveals the extraordinary diversity of views on the subject by examining how civil society has been treated in classical liberalism, liberal egalitarianism, critical theory, feminism, natural law, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Confucianism. The volume draws...
A Companion to Japanese History
A Companion to Japanese History provides an authoritative overview of current debates and approaches within the study of Japan’s history. Composed of 30 chapters written by an international group of scholars Combines traditional perspectives with the most recent scholarly concerns Supplements a chronological survey with targeted thematic analyses Presents stimulating interventions into individual controversies
Shinto
Shinto - A Short History provides an introductory outline of the historical development of Shinto from the ancient period of Japanese history until the present day. Shinto does not offer a readily identifiable set of teachings, rituals or beliefs; individual shrines and kami deities have led their own lives, not within the confines of a narrowly defined Shinto, but rather as participants in a religious field that included Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and folk elements. Thus, this book approaches Shinto as a series of historical 'religious systems' rather than attempting to identify a timeless 'Shinto essence'. This history focuses on three aspects of Shinto practice: the people involved in shrine worship, the institutional networks that ensured continuity, and teachings and rituals. By following the interplay between these aspects in different periods, a pattern of continuity and discontinuity is revealed that challenges received understandings of the history of Shinto. This book does not presuppose prior knowledge of Japanese religion, and is easily accessible for those new to the subject.
Voices of Early Modern Japan
Based on fresh translations of historical documents, this volume offers a revealing look at Japan during the time of the Tokugawa shoguns from 1600–1868, focusing on the day-to-day lives of both the rich and powerful and ordinary citizens. Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life during the Age of the Shoguns spans an extraordinary period of Japanese history, ranging from the unification of the warring states under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the early 17th century to the overthrow of the shogunate just prior to the mid-19th century opening of Japan by the West. Through close examinations of sources from a time known as "The Great Peace," this fascinating volume offers fresh insights into the Tokugawa era—its political institutions, rigid class hierarchy, artistic and material culture, religious life, and more. Sources come from all levels of Japanese society, everything from government documents and household records to personal correspondence and diaries, all carefully translated and examined in light of the latest scholarship.
Shinto
Helen Hardacre offers for the first time in any language a sweeping, comprehensive history of Shinto, the tradition that is practiced by some 80% of the Japanese people and underlies the institution of the Emperor.
A Christian Samurai
Through a close critical analysis of Baba Bunko's often humorous, but always biting, satirical essays a new picture of the hidden world of Christianity in eighteenth-century Japan emerges - a picture that contradicts the generally-held belief among Western historians that the Catholic mission in Japan ended in failure. A Christian Samurai will surprise many readers when they discover that Christian moral teachings not only survived the long period of persecution but influenced Japanese society throughout the Tokugawa period.
Before the Nation
Exploring the emergence and evolution of theories of nationhood that continue to be evoked in present-day Japan, Susan L. Burns provides a close examination of the late-eighteenth-century intellectual movement kokugaku, which means "the study of our country.” Departing from earlier studies of kokugaku that focused on intellectuals whose work has been valorized by modern scholars, Burns seeks to recover the multiple ways "Japan" as social and cultural identity began to be imagined before modernity. Central to Burns's analysis is Motoori Norinaga’s Kojikiden, arguably the most important intellectual work of Japan's early modern period. Burns situates the Kojikiden as one in a series of att...
Practical Pursuits
The idea that personal cultivation leads to social and material well-being became widespread in late Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868). Practical Pursuits explores theories of personal development that were diffused in the early nineteenth century by a network of religious groups in the Edo (Tokyo) area, and explains how, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the leading members of these communities went on to create ideological coalitions inspired by the pursuit of a modern form of cultivation. Variously engaged in divination, Shinto purification rituals, and Zen practice, these individuals ultimately used informal political associations to promote the Confucian-style assumption that personal imp...
Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism
Kaibara Ekken (1630—1714) was the focal Neo-Confucian thinker of the early Tokagawa period. He established the importance of Neo-Confucianism in Japan at a time when Buddhism had long been the dominant religious philosophy. This is the first book-length presentation of his thought. It contains a lengthy introduction to Ekken's life, time, and thought, and a careful translation into readable English of Ekken's book, Precepts for Daily Life in Japan (Yamanto Zokkun).
Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan
Pioneering study of the localization of Chinese culture in early modern Japan, using legends, classics, and historical terms as case studies. While current scholarship on Tokugawa Japan (16031868) tends to see China as either a model or the Other, Wai-ming Ngs pioneering and ambitious study offers a new perspective by suggesting that Chinese culture also functioned as a collection of cultural building blocks that were selectively introduced and then modified to fit into the Japanese tradition. Chinese terms and forms survived, but the substance and the spirit were made Japanese. This borrowing of Chinese terms and forms to express Japanese ideas and feelings could result in the s...
