Rethinking Japanese History

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies #74

by Yoshihiko Amino, Alan S. Christy (Translator), Hitomi Tonomura (Contributor)

Book on Japanese history.

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Asia

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[AskHistorians]

This book reconsiders topics in premodern Japanese history like outcasts, non-agrarian production and taxation, and Japan's position in the East Asian sphere. This is a must read for anyone interested in premodern Japan but does require some background knowledge.

[Melos Han-Tani]

A remarkably detailed analysis of receipts, papers, etc in Japan that show that Japan wasn't really as 'isolationist' or 'agriculture-centered' as the national narrative would like to show.

I didn't finish much of this, being a collection of what are fairly detailed academic papers. It's really nice that this was translated to english. The reason it's kind of hard for a non-scholar is that there's so many place names and terms - as a layperson I got some stuff out of it and might skim the rest of the chapters without worrying about missing the details.

On an unrelated note, it's kind of funny at times - the original writer was pretty non-mainstream when he was writing, as the field Japanese history (at least how he portrays it) was very nationalist/myth-building.

[Kate Shanahan]

I learned so much from this book. The roles that women could hold, the origin of hinin and what that really meant (it’s not what you might think!), currency, agriculture- so many challenges to traditional assumptions of Japanese history. The translation is excellent as well.

[Akapan]

Also in Japan, they teach you that "Japan was always isolated and agriculture was the main industry". This book teaches you instead that how that "common sense" is wrong.

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