Defining engagement : Japan and global contexts, 1640-1868 / Robert I. Hellyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hellyer, Robert I.

Contributor:

Harvard University. Asia Center.

Series:

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 326.

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 326

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japan--Foreign relations--1600-1868.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 281 p. :) ill., maps ;

Distribution:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 2010.

Other Title:

Japan and Global Contexts, 1640-1868

Place of Publication:

Boston : Harvard University Asia Center, 2010.

Summary:

Presenting fresh insights on the internal dynamics and global contexts that shaped foreign relations in early modern Japan, Robert I. Hellyer challenges the still largely accepted wisdom that the Tokugawa shogunate, guided by an ideology of seclusion, stifled intercourse with the outside world, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Examining diplomacy, coastal defense, and foreign trade, this study demonstrates that while the shogunate created the broader framework, foreign relations were actually implemented through cooperative but sometimes competitive relationships with the Satsuma and Tsushima domains, which themselves held largely independent ties with neighboring states. Successive Tokugawa leaders also proactively revised foreign trade, especially with China, taking steps that mirrored the commercial stances of other Asian and Western states.In the nineteenth century, the system of foreign relations continued to evolve, with Satsuma gaining a greater share of foreign trade and Tsushima assuming more responsibility in coastal defense. The two domains subsequently played key roles in Japan's transition from using early modern East Asian practices of foreign relations to the national adoption of international relations, especially the recasting of foreign trade and the centralization of foreign relations authority, in the years surrounding the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction

Interdependent Partners: The Shogunate, Satsuma, and Tsushima

The Reaction against Globalization

Guarded Engagement

Domestic Demand and Foreign Trade

Local Japan Encounters the West

The Transition in Foreign Trade

Defending the Domain and the Realm

The End of Domain Agency and the Adoption of International Relations

Works Cited

Index

Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68417-499-6

OCLC:

1132223251

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684174997 DOI