Download or read book The Company and the Shogun written by Adam Clulow and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-24 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dutch East India Company was a hybrid organization combining the characteristics of both corporation and state that attempted to thrust itself aggressively into an Asian political order in which it possessed no obvious place and was transformed in the process. This study focuses on the company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. In each encounter the Dutch were forced to retreat, compelled to abandon their claims to sovereign powers, and to refashion themselves again and again—from subjects of a fictive king to loyal vassals of the shogun, from aggressive pirates to meek merchants, and from insistent defenders of colonial sovereignty to legal subjects of the Tokugawa state. Within the confines of these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun first took shape and were subsequently set into what would become their permanent form. The first book to treat the Dutch East India Company in Japan as something more than just a commercial organization, The Company and the Shogun presents new perspective on one of the most important, long-lasting relationships to develop between an Asian state and a European overseas enterprise.

Download or read book The End of the Shoguns and the Birth of Modern Japan 2nd Edition written by Mark E. Cunningham and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the end of the shoguns pave the way for modern Japan? Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, emperors ruled Japan. But powerful families gained the loyalty of the samurai - the emperors’ warriors. In 1185 one local lord took control as shogun, leader of the samurai armies. For the next seven hundred years, the emperors were ceremonial figures, and the shoguns ruled Japan, banning interaction with the Western world. In the nineteenth century, Westerners demanded that Japan open to trade under the threat of invasion. Japan’s shogunate realized it didn’t have the military technology to fight them. When the shogun government made concessions to the Westerners, Japanese lords were outraged and returned their support to the emperor. The shogunate crumbled. In 1868 Emperor Meiji became ruler of Japan. He opened Japan to modern technology, and his military advisers created a global fighting force. The end of the shoguns, which led to the birth of modern Japan, was one of the world’s pivotal moments.

Download or read book Stranger in the Shogun s City written by Amy Stanley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).

Download or read book Shadow Shoguns written by Jacob M. Schlesinger and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a vivid account of the corrupt and improbable political machine that ran Japanese politics for twenty years, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, the period during which Japan became the world's second-largest economy. Reviews "Washington lobbyists, Moscow mafiosi, and Beijing party bosses stand back! . . . Here is one of the longest running big-time political sleaze serials of the past quarter-century. . . . This was a book waiting to be written, and not only has Schlesinger done it, but he has also produced a fine job of political reporting." --New York Times Book Review "In a rollicking style, Schlesinger . . . demolishes the popular misconception that politicians are boring. His is a tale of monstrous personalities. . . . This is the most entertaining short history of Japanese politics this reviewer has encountered." --The Economist "A story which is told vividly in this well researched and reliable account. . . . A superb analysis of Japan's politics and economic affairs." --Washington Post Book World "Shadow Shoguns is a lively and anecdote-rich account of the eerie parallels between Tokyo's now-battered political machine and New York's Tammany Hall. . . . Schlesinger masterfully demonstrates why Prime Minister Tanaka personified the collusive ties between Japanese politicians and Big Business." --Business Week "A fascinating and penetrating tale about the Tanaka machine that dominated Japan's politics for several decades and whose demise in the early 1990s has created a political vacuum that accounts for many of Japan's current problems." --Foreign Affairs

Download or read book Tokugawa Japan written by Chie Nakane and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dog Shogun written by Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2006-04-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tsunayoshi (1646–1709), the fifth Tokugawa shogun, is one of the most notorious figures in Japanese history. Viewed by many as a tyrant, his policies were deemed eccentric, extreme, and unorthodox. His Laws of Compassion, which made the maltreatment of dogs an offense punishable by death, earned him the nickname Dog Shogun, by which he is still popularly known today. However, Tsunayoshi’s rule coincides with the famed Genroku era, a period of unprecedented cultural growth and prosperity that Japan would not experience again until the mid-twentieth century. It was under Tsunayoshi that for the first time in Japanese history considerable numbers of ordinary townspeople were in a financial position to acquire an education and enjoy many of the amusements previously reserved for the ruling elite. Based on a masterful re-examination of primary sources, this exciting new work by a senior scholar of the Tokugawa period maintains that Tsunayoshi’s notoriety stems largely from the work of samurai historians and officials who saw their privileges challenged by a ruler sympathetic to commoners. Beatrice Bodart-Bailey’s insightful analysis of Tsunayoshi’s background sheds new light on his personality and the policies associated with his shogunate. Tsunayoshi was the fourth son of Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–1651) and left largely in the care of his mother, the daughter of a greengrocer. Under her influence, Bodart-Bailey argues, the future ruler rebelled against the values of his class. As evidence she cites the fact that, as shogun, Tsunayoshi not only decreed the registration of dogs, which were kept in large numbers by samurai and posed a threat to the populace, but also the registration of pregnant women and young children to prevent infanticide. He decreed, moreover, that officials take on the onerous tasks of finding homes for abandoned children and caring for sick travelers. In the eyes of his detractors, Tsunayoshi’s interest in Confucian and Buddhist studies and his other intellectual pursuits were merely distractions for a dilettante. Bodart-Bailey counters that view by pointing out that one of Japan’s most important political philosophers, Ogyû Sorai, learned his craft under the fifth shogun. Sorai not only praised Tsunayoshi’s government, but his writings constitute the theoretical framework for many of the ruler’s controversial policies. Another salutary aspect of Tsunayoshi’s leadership that Bodart-Bailey brings to light is his role in preventing the famines and riots that would have undoubtedly taken place following the worst earthquake and tsunami as well as the most violent eruption of Mount Fuji in history—all of which occurred during the final years of Tsunayoshi's shogunate. The Dog Shogun is a thoroughly revisionist work of Japanese political history that touches on many social, intellectual, and economic developments as well. As such it promises to become a standard text on late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth-century Japan.

Download or read book Sho gun written by James Clavell and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic epic novel of feudal Japan that captured the heart of a culture and the imagination of the world, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author and unparalleled master of historical fiction, James Clavell After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen--Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne's loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed. Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: Shōgun.

Download or read book Taiko written by Eiji Yoshikawa and published by Vertical, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-08-03 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tempestuous closing decades of the sixteenth century, the Empire of Japan writhes in chaos as the shogunate crumbles and rival warlords battle for supremacy. Warrior monks in their armed citadels block the road to the capital; castles are destroyed, villages plundered, fields put to the torch. Amid this devastation, three men dream of uniting the nation. At one extreme is the charismatic but brutal Nobunaga, whose ruthless ambition crushes all before him. At the opposite pole is the cold, deliberate Ieyasu, wise in counsel, brave in battle, mature beyond his years. But the keystone of this triumvirate is the most memorable of all, Hideyoshi, who rises from the menial post of sandal bearer to become Taiko--absolute ruler of Japan in the Emperor's name. When Nobunaga emerges from obscurity by destroying an army ten times the size of his own, he allies himself with Ieyasu, whose province is weak, but whose canniness and loyalty make him invaluable. Yet it is the scrawny, monkey-faced Hideyoshi--brash, impulsive, and utterly fearless--who becomes the unlikely savior of this ravaged land. Born the son of a farmer, he takes on the world with nothing but his bare hands and his wits, turning doubters into loyal servants, rivals into faithful friends, and enemies into allies. In all this he uses a piercing insight into human nature that unlocks castle gates, opens men's minds, and captures women's hearts. For Hideyoshi's passions are not limited to war and intrigue-his faithful wife, Nene, holds his love dear, even when she must share it; the chaste Oyu, sister of Hideyoshi's chief strategist, falls prey to his desires; and the seductive Chacha, whom he rescues from the fiery destruction of her father's castle, tempts his weakness. As recounted by Eiji Yoshikawa, author of the international best-seller Musashi, Taiko tells many stories: of the fury of Nobunaga and the fatal arrogance of the black-toothed Yoshimoto; of the pathetic downfall of the House of Takeda; how the scorned Mitsuhide betrayed his master; how once impregnable ramparts fell as their defenders died gloriously. Most of all, though, Taiko is the story of how one man transformed a nation through the force of his will and the depth of his humanity. Filled with scenes of pageantry and violence, acts of treachery and self-sacrifice, tenderness and savagery, Taiko combines the panoramic spectacle of a Kurosawa epic with a vivid evocation of feudal Japan.

Download or read book Japan Under the Shoguns 1185 1868 written by Mavis Pilbeam and published by Steck-Vaughn. This book was released on 1999 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the history of Japan during the nearly 700 years when the country was under the rule of military warlords, or shoguns.

Download or read book What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns written by and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1999 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive view of how the Samurai and Shoguns lived in Japan, their discipline and battle gear as well as other facts about typical behavior.

Download or read book Shogun s Painted Culture written by Timon Screech and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2000-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this penetrating analysis of a little-explored area of Japanese cultural history, Timon Screech reassesses the career of the chief minister Matsudaira Sadanobu, who played a key role in defining what we think of as Japanese culture today. Aware of how visual representations could support or undermine regimes, Sadanobu promoted painting to advance his own political aims and improve the shogunate's image. As an antidote to the hedonistic ukiyo-e, or floating world, tradition, which he opposed, Sadanobu supported attempts to construct a new approach to painting modern life. At the same time, he sought to revive historical and literary painting, favouring such artists as the flamboyant, innovative Maruyama Okyo. After the city of Kyoto was destroyed by fire in 1788, its reconstruction provided the stage for the renewal of Japan's iconography of power, the consummation of the 'shogun's painted culture'. “Screech’s ideas are fascinating, often brilliant, and well grounded. . . . [Shogun’s Painted Culture] presents a thorough analysis of aspects of the early modern Japanese world rarely observed in such detail and never before treated to such an eloquent handling in the English language.”—CAA Reviews “[A] stylishly written and provocative cultural history.”—Monumenta Nipponica “As in his admirable Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820, Screech lavishes learning and scholarly precision, but remains colloquial in thought and eminently readable.”—Japan Times Timon Screech is Senior Lecturer in the history of Japanese art at SOAS, University of London, and Senior Research Associate at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. He is the author of several books on Japanese history and culture, including Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700–1820 (Reaktion, 1999).

Download or read book The Shogun s Daughter written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Joh Rowland's thrilling series set in Feudal Japan is as gripping and entertaining as ever with The Shogun's Daughter. Japan, 1704. In an elegant mansion a young woman named Tsuruhime lies on her deathbed, attended by her nurse. Smallpox pustules cover her face. Incense burns, to banish the evil spirits of disease. After Tsuruhime takes her last breath, the old woman watching from the doorway says, "Who's going to tell the Shogun his daughter is dead?" The death of the Shogun's daughter has immediate consequences on his regime. There will be no grandchild to leave the kingdom. Faced with his own mortality and beset by troubles caused by the recent earthquake, he names as his heir Yoshisato, the seventeen-year-old son he only recently discovered was his. Until five months ago, Yoshisato was raised as the illegitimate son of Yanagisawa, the shogun's favorite advisor. Yanagisawa is also the longtime enemy of Sano Ichiro. Sano doubts that Yoshisato is really the Shogun's son, believing it's more likely a power-play by Yanagisawa. When Sano learns that Tsuruhime's death may have been a murder, he sets off on a dangerous investigation that leads to more death and destruction as he struggles to keep his pregnant wife, Reiko, and his son safe. Instead, he and his family become the accused. And this time, they may not survive the day.

Download or read book Authorizing the Shogunate written by Vyjayanthi R. Selinger and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Genpei War of 1180-1185 signaled a crucial shift in Japanese history because it gave birth to the shogunate, or government run by warriors. How was the emergence of this new polity following a contentious civil war explained in literary texts? This book argues that political authority is made visible in the variant texts of the Heike monogatari corpus through rituals that map the ideal social-cosmic order, overwriting untidy historical realities. Artifacts of material culture likewise provide the social and political codes to authenticate warrior power and manage its violence. Through its focus on ritual and material practices, this book offers a new perspective on how texts from fourteenth century Japan harnessed symbolic understandings of authority to evoke order and contain rupture. Equally significant is its analysis of the Genpei jōsuiki a Heike monogatari variant that played a critical role in the retrospection of medieval Japan through the early modern period.

Download or read book Shogun Iemitsu written by Michael R. Zomber and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising from the fragrant, soothing water, Hideo allowed the liquid to stream down his face. His long hair trailed down his well-muscled neck in a satisfying weighty mass. Wiping his eyes and completely relaxed, Hideo looked first at the swords on the stand nearest him and then fell into a reverie. His earliest childhood memory was not of his beloved mother but of his fathers swords. The ritual was invariable. Before his father would kiss his mother, before his father would greet or dandle him, the man who had had the courage and audacity to marry the daughter of one of the Dictator Odas concubines removed his sandals with great care and walked to the black lacquer, double sword stand and, employing ever greater care, first removed the long sword from his sash and then the shorter sword. Each was positioned with incredible accuracy so that the handle and guard were outside of the cradle formed by the arms of the stand. The long sword was always placed above the shorter one. Their graceful curves, shining black lacquer scabbards, and silk-wrapped grips fascinated Hideo. They were so intimately associated with his fathera kindly but serious man of few words. Shogun Iemitsu chronicles a day in the life of two young samurai, Hideo and Kobiyashi, as they attend a festival, fall in love, and put down a rebellion against the Tokugawa government that changes their lives forever. Shogun Iemitsu is based entirely on historical events, and it is filled with breathtaking details of life under the Shoguns. A must-read for anyone who enjoyed James Clavell's Shogun. Shogun Iemitsu will thrill beyond your wildest expectations!

Download or read book The Maker of Modern Japan written by A L Sadler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tokugawa Ieyasu founded a dynasty of rulers, organized a system of government and set in train the re-orientation of the religion of Japan so that he would take the premier place in it. Calm, capable and entirely fearless, Ieyasu deliberately brought the opposition to a head and crushed in a decisive battle, after which he made himself Shogun, despite not being from the Minamoto clan. He organized the Japanese legal and educational systems and encouraged trade with Europe (playing off the Protestant powers of Holland and England against Catholic Spain and Portugal). This book remains one of the few volumes on Tokugawa Ieyasu which draws on more material from Japanese sources than quotations from the European documents from his era and is therefore much more accurate and thorough in its examination of the life and legacy of one of the greatest Shoguns.

Download or read book Samurai Revolution written by Romulus Hillsborough and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With his easily readable and entertaining style, Hillsborough does a great job of elucidating the complex customs that ruled Edo Period life and politics. --The Japan Times"

Download or read book Ooku the Secret World of the Shogun s Women written by Cecilia Segawa Seigle and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the least understood and often maligned aspects of the Tokugawa Shogunate is the Ooku, or 'Great Interior,' the institution within the shogun's palace, administered by and for the upper-class shogunal women and their attendants who resided there. Long the object of titillation and a favorite subject for off-the-wall fantasy in historical TV and film dramas, the actual daily life, practices, cultural roles, and ultimate missions of these women have remained largely in the dark, except for occasional explosions of scandal. In crystal-clear prose that is a pleasure to read, this new book, however, presents the Ooku in a whole new down-to-earth, practical light. After many years of perusing unexamined Ooku documents generated by these women and their associates, the authors have provided not only an overview of the fifteen generations of Shoguns whose lives were lived in residence with this institution, but how shoguns interacted differently with it. Much like recent research on imperial convents, they find not a huddled herd of oppressed women, but on the contrary, women highly motivated to the preservation of their own particular cultural institution. Most important, they have been able to identify "the culture of secrecy" within the Ooku itself to be an important mechanism for preserving the highest value, 'loyalty,' that essential value to their overall self-interested mission dedicated to the survival of the Shogunate itself." - Barbara Ruch, Columbia University "The aura of power and prestige of the institution known as the ooku-the complex network of women related to the shogun and their living quarters deep within Edo castle-has been a popular subject of Japanese television dramas and movies. Brushing aside myths and fallacies that have long obscured our understanding, this thoroughly researched book provides an intimate look at the lives of the elite female residents of the shogun's elaborate compound. Drawing information from contemporary diaries and other private memoirs, as well as official records, the book gives detailed descriptions of the physical layout of their living quarters, regulations, customs, and even clothing, enabling us to actually visualize this walled-in world that was off limits for most of Japanese society. It also outlines the complex hierarchy of positions, and by shining a light on specific women, gives readers insight into the various factions within the ooku and the scandals that occasionally occurred. Both positive and negative aspects of life in the "great interior" are represented, and one learns how some of these high-ranking women wielded tremendous social as well as political power, at times influencing the decision-making of the ruling shoguns. In sum, this book is the most accurate overview and characterization of the ooku to date, revealing how it developed and changed during the two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule. A treasure trove of information, it will be a vital source for scholars and students of Japan studies, as well as women's studies, and for general readers who are interested in learning more about this fascinating women's institution and its significance in Japanese history and culture." - Patricia Fister, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto