scholarly journals ‘The Military Mirror of Kai’: Swordsmanship and a Medieval Text in Early Modern Japan

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wert
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Japanese History ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
Cultural Arts ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
Modern Japan ◽  
The Military

AbstractSwordsmanship emerged as a new field of knowledge in early modern Japan (1600–1868), a time of relative peace. During the most violent periods of Japanese history, the latter half of the medieval period (1185–1600), samurai conducted warfare mostly on horseback, using the bow and arrow, or by leading massive armies filled with soldiers who used pikes, halberds, and even firearms. In this paper, I will trace the origins of early modern swordsmanship to the late 16th century during the transition between the medieval and early modern periods, when teachers of swordsmanship and their sword ‘styles’ first appeared in texts. Of these texts I will focus on ‘The Military Mirror of Kai’, purportedly written during the late 16th century, and a widely-read text among samurai of the early modern period. A mix of fact and fiction, the ‘Mirror’ became a source of fantasy and inspiration for samurai and non-samurai alike. It is also the earliest source of writing about swordsmanship, which was influenced by, and grew alongside, other medieval cultural arts such as

Book Reviews

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 246-247
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Edo Period ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Japan

Carl Mosk of the University of Victoria reviews “Japan's Industrious Revolution: Economic and Social Transformations in the Early Modern Period”, by Akira Hayami. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores how the economic and social transformations in pre-1600 Japan led to an “industrious revolution” in the early modern period, focusing on the rise of labor-intensive agriculture. Discusses viewpoints and methods in the economic history of Japan; history before the emergence of economic society; the delayed formation process of economic society; the establishment of economic society and the Edo period; the economic and social changes in the Edo period; the rise of industriousness in early modern Japan; economic development in early modern Japan; and historical reflections on Japan's industrialization.”

Ancient Learning

2015 ◽  
pp. 290-306
Author(s):  
John A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Japanese History ◽  
Zhu Xi ◽  
Edo Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Modern Japan ◽  
Learning School

This chapter examines the claim that the Ancient Learning School (kogakuha) presided over a revival of classical Confucian learning during the early-modern period of Japanese history, otherwise known as the Edo period (1600–1868). While questioning the claim’s validity, the study seeks to salvage the notion of kogaku by interpreting it as another expression of Neo-Confucianism. Kogaku thinkers criticized Zhu Xi and other Neo-Confucians, but doing so arguably reflected their involvement in the learning of Neo-Confucianism rather than something divorcing them from it. The study cites methodological, terminological, and philosophical similarities between the major kogaku thinkers and Neo-Confucian followers of Zhu Xi. The chapter concludes with a brief survey of subsequent, late-Tokugawa critiques of Sokō, Jinsai, and Sorai, prior to their revival in the late-Meiji by Inoue Tetsujirō in his efforts to define a philosophical tradition for modern Japan.

Overview of the research work of Prof. Fumiko Sugimoto

Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (7) ◽  
pp. 26-29
Author(s):  
Fumiko Sugimoto
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The People ◽  
The 19Th Century

Professor Fumiko Sugimoto has been analysing the history of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century with a focus not only on the temporal axis but also on the relationships between specific spaces and the people who live and act as subjective agents in these spaces. During the past few years, she has been endeavouring to decipher the history in the period of transition from the early modern period to the modern period by introducing the perspective of oceans, with a focus on Japan. Through the study of history in terms of spatial theory that also takes oceans into consideration, she is proposing to present a new concept about the territorial formation of modern states. [Main subjects] Law and Governance in Early Modern Japan Judgement in Early Modern Society The Evolution of Control over Territory under the Tokugawa State A Human Being in the Nineteenth Century: WATANABE Kazan, a Conflicting Consciousness of Status as an Artist and as a Samurai Early Modern Maps in the Social-standing-based Order of Tokugawa Japan The World of Information in Bakumatsu Japan: Timely News and Bird's Eye Views Early Modern Political History in Terms of Spatial Theory The Emergence of Newly Defined Oceans and the Transformation of Political Culture.

Moscow: The Third Rome

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The Third ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Imperial Ideology ◽  
The City ◽  
Modern Russian

In the mid-19th century, three 16th-century Russian sources were published that alluded to Moscow as the “third Rome.” When 19th-century Russian historians discovered these texts, many interpreted them as evidence of an ancient imperial ideology of endless expansion, an ideology that would go on to define Russian foreign policy from the 16th century to the modern day. But what did these 16th-century depictions of Moscow as the third Rome actually have in mind? Did their meaning remain stable or did it change over the course of the early modern period? And how significant were they to early modern Russian imperial ideology more broadly? Scholars have pointed out that one cannot assume that depictions of Moscow as the third Rome were necessarily meant to be imperial celebrations per se. After all, the Muscovites considered that the first Rome fell for various heretical beliefs, in particular that Christ did not possess a human soul, and the second Rome, Constantinople, fell to the Turks in 1453 precisely because it had accepted some of these heretical “Latin” doctrines. As such, the image of Moscow as the third Rome might have marked a celebration of the city as a new imperial center, but it could also allude to Moscow’s duty to protect the “true” Orthodox faith after the fall—actual and theological—of Rome and Constantinople. As time progressed, however, the nuances of religious polemic once captured by the trope were lost. During the 17th and early 18th centuries, the image of Moscow as the third Rome took on a more unequivocally imperialist tone. Nonetheless, it would be easy to overstate the significance of allusions to Moscow as the third Rome to early modern Russian imperial ideology more broadly. Not only was the trope rare and by no means the only imperial comparison to be found in Muscovite literature, it was also ignored by secular authorities and banned by clerics.

Secularization and the Jōruri Plays

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 76-97
Author(s):  
Koh Kawata
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Classical Concept ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Japanese People ◽  
Early Modern Japan ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Historical Processes

Abstract This paper aims to show, primarily through analysis of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century jōruri 浄瑠璃 plays, the radical changes in the vision of salvation shared among ordinary people, focusing especially on Jōruri monogatari 浄瑠璃物語, Sonezaki shinjū 曽根崎心中 and Kinpira jōruri 金平浄瑠璃, and highlights how such changes are related to contemporary social processes of secularization. José Casanova famously claimed that the classical concept of secularization as the decline of religious belief is not adequate for the task of understanding general historical processes. Nevertheless, an equivalent to this process of religious decline is an important phenomenon in early modern Japan. In this secularization process, Japanese people of the early modern period sought more secular visions of salvation. Strong, persistent attention to kokoro 心 (mind or spirit), regarded as the means of realizing secular values such as wealth or happiness, was an expression of these concerns. Analyzing jōruri plays reveals how the increasing power of the centralized state, defeating religious powers one by one, became the key to changing people’s visions of salvation and thus, of secularization processes.

Towards an Analytical Model of Military Effectiveness for the Early Modern Period: the Military Dynamics of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-316
Author(s):  
Daniel Szechi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Military History ◽  
Military Effectiveness ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
British State ◽  
The Military

Abstract Early modern European rebellions have long been of interest to military historians, yet, with the exception of the 1745 rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart, the military history of the Jacobite rebellions against the English/British state is little known outside the Anglophone world. Likewise, though there have been many analyses of particular rebellions no analytical model of rebel military capabilities has hitherto been proposed, and thus meaningful comparisons between early modern rebellions located in different regions and different eras has been difficult. This article accordingly offers an analysis of the military effectiveness of the Jacobite rebels in 1715-16 structured by a model adapted from the ›Military Effectiveness‹ framework first advanced by Allan Millett and Williamson Murray. This is with a view to stimulating military-historical interest in Jacobite rebellions other than the ’45, and promoting more systematic discussion of the military effectiveness of early modern European rebel armies.

scholarly journals Plague, Practice, and Prescriptive Text

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 152-178
Author(s):  
Moshe Dovid Chechik ◽  
Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Status ◽  
Accepted Practice ◽  
At Home

Abstract This article studies the fate of a contradiction between practice and prescriptive text in 16th-century Ashkenaz. The practice was fleeing a plagued city, which contradicted a Talmudic passage requiring self-isolation at home when plague strikes. The emergence of this contradiction as a halakhic problem and its various forms of resolution are analyzed as a case study for the development of halakhic literature in early modern Ashkenaz. The Talmudic text was not considered a challenge to the accepted practice prior to the early modern period. The conflict between practice and Talmud gradually emerged as a halakhic problem in 15th-century rabbinic sources. These sources mixed legal and non-legal material, leaving the status of this contradiction ambiguous. The 16th century saw a variety of solutions to the problem in different halakhic writings, each with their own dynamics, type of authority, possibilities, and limitations. This variety reflects the crystallization of separate genres of halakhic literature.

scholarly journals Myths of military revolution: European expansion and Eurocentrism

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.C. Sharman
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Western Expansion ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
Military Innovations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Social Root

This article critiques explanations of the rise of the West in the early modern period premised on the thesis that military competition drove the development of gunpowder technology, new tactics, and the Westphalian state, innovations that enabled European trans-continental conquests. Even theories in International Relations and other fields that posit economic or social root causes of Western expansion often rely on this “military revolution” thesis as a crucial intervening variable. Yet, the factors that defined the military revolution in Europe were absent in European expeditions to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and conventional accounts are often marred by Eurocentric biases. Given the insignificance of military innovations, Western expansion prior to the Industrial Revolution is best explained by Europeans’ ability to garner local support and allies, but especially by their deference to powerful non-Western polities.

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