Patrick Lovell comments

Posted in: Tokugawa Japan wasn't nearly as isolated as history books teach See in context

This article caught my attention as a Japanese history major and armchair historian focused on Japan for the last fifty years.

I have not read anything about Tsunoda san, his credentials, nor have I see his newspaper article noted in this piece, but I think that the notion put forward here that Japan was not as isolated as the history books state is problematic to say the least. For starters, what history books are being questioned?

It has never been questioned among serious Japanese historians that Japan was not “totally” shut off from the world. The Tokugawa rulers - at least the ones interested in the outside - and high government officials throughout the period were quite well informed of both the political and technological progression in Europe and Asia throughout the 265 years of their rule. Toward the end of the period, Dutch learning and Dutch medical books were not that uncommon in daimyo residences in Edo.

That said, and as a high school teacher, Tsunoda san may very well have a point. The history favoured in Japan since the Meiji period has - and still is to a degree by Japanese Japanese historians - been hostile to the Tokugawa. So if he is questioning Japanese Education Ministry approved textbooks, chances are that he very well may have a point. But if he is questioning serious histories on Japan - mostly from the West - I think he has a more challenging task at hand.

The population of Japan was fairly static at around 30 million all through the Edo period and the number of warriors, who's class ruled the country, was also fairly static at around 5 to 6% of that population. Not all of these samurai were at the level whereby they had access to any information their lords may have had and certainly information from outside Japan. Not, at least, until the end of the period. Also due to the political divisions of the warrior class, not all samurai were equal. The Fudai and Shimpan daimyo were always more informed than the Tozama, losers at Sekigahara. There were up to 300 daimyo in the country at any one time, but the number of each class of daimyo fluctuated throughout the era.

So, to suggest that this small group at the top of the ruling Tokugawa bakufu, a group that had varying degrees of knowledge and information from the West and Asia, represents anything other than a “closed country” is, to be polite, pretty fanciful.

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