Like No Other : Exceptionalism and Nativism in Early Modern Japan / Mark T. McNally.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McNally, Mark T., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nativistic movements--Japan--History.

Nativistic movements.

Exceptionalism--Japan--History.

Exceptionalism.

Japan--Intellectual life--1600-1868.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2015]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Like No Other: Exceptionalism and Nativism in Early Modern Japan probes the association of the early modern Japanese intellectual institution called Kokugaku with the phenomenon of nativism. Uncovering profound differences that cast serious doubt on this association, Mark McNally argues that what Japanologists viewed as nativistic about Kokugaku were actually more typical of what Americanists call exceptionalism. By severing the link between Kokugaku and nativism, he is able to explore within early modern Japanese history instances that were more genuinely nativistic, such as the upheaval associated with the intercultural encounters with Westerners during the 1850s and 1860s that culminated in the overthrow of Japan's last shogun. He also documents, for the first time in Japanese studies, the ways in which exceptionalism applies to Japanese history; not by focusing on either Nihonjinron or on Kokugaku-the connection between the former and exceptionalism is one that Americanists have already made, and the connection between the two Japanese institutions is one that Japanologists already know well-but by highlighting the central role of Confucianism. While Americans looked to the Judeo-Christian tradition for their exceptionalist ideas, their counterparts in early modern Japan looked to Confucianism, whose foundational connections to exceptionalism were perhaps stronger than any analogous tradition in the West. Despite the fact that exceptionalism and nativism occupy distinct positions within the historiographical traditions of both the United States and Japan, they also intersect and overlap in the latter case, which strongly suggests that this situation may also be true in other places, including the United States.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Introduction Nativism, Exceptionalism, Emics, And Etics

Chapter One. Kokugaku, Nativism, And "Exceptional" Japan

Chapter Two. Sonnō-Jō'I Nativism And Bakumatsu Japan

Chapter Three. Proving Uniqueness And Asserting Superiority: The History Of Exceptionalism

Chapter Four. Seventeenth-Century Tokugawa Exceptionalism

Chapter Five. From Exceptionalism To Nativism: Mitogaku And Nineteenth-Century Japan

Conclusion. Transcending Confucian Hierarchy With A Logocentric Binary

Epilogue

Notes

Glossary

References

Index

About The Author

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2015.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

ISBN:

9780824868253

0824868250

9780824852856

0824852850

OCLC:

962065579