Defensive Positions : The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan / Noell Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Noell, author.

Series:

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 381.

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 381

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Coast defenses--Japan--History--17th century.

Coast defenses.

Coast defenses--Japan--History--18th century.

Merchant marine--Security measures--Japan--History.

Merchant marine.

Shipping--Security measures--Japan--History.

Shipping.

Japan--Defenses--History--17th century.

Japan.

Japan--Defenses--History--18th century.

Japan--Foreign relations--1600-1868.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 244 pages :) illustrations, maps ;

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 2015.

Other Title:

The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan

Place of Publication:

Boston : Harvard University Asia Center, 2015.

Summary:

Defensive Positions focuses on the role of regional domains in early modern Japan's coastal defense, shedding new light on this system's development. This examination, in turn, has significant long-term political implications for the involvement of those domains in Tokugawa state formation. Noell Wilson argues that domainal autonomy in executing maritime defense slowly escalated over the course of the Tokugawa period to the point where the daimyo ultimately challenged Tokugawa authorities as the primary military interface with the outside world. By first exploring localized maritime defense at Nagasaki and then comparing its organization with those of the Yokohama and Hakodate harbors during the treaty port era, Wilson identifies new, core systemic sources for the collapse of the shogunate's control of the monopoly on violence. Her insightful analysis reveals how the previously unexamined system of domain-managed coastal defense comprised a critical third element--in addition to trade and diplomacy--of Tokugawa external relations. Domainal control of coastal defense exacerbated the shogunate's inability to respond to important military and political challenges as Japan transitioned from an early modern system of parcelized, local maritime defense to one of centralized, national security as embraced by world powers in the nineteenth century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [221]-230) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781684175567

1684175569

OCLC:

1132229225

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684175567 DOI