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Introduction

Genealogies of Japanese Early Modernity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2024

David L. Howell
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

I introduce this volume of the New Cambridge History of Japan with two questions: How is it that Anglophone scholars have come to refer to the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) and immediately surrounding years as Japan’s “early modern” period? And does calling the period early modern suggest something fundamentally different from the term used in Japanese, kinsei? When the first Cambridge History of Japan was published, in 1991, the answer to the latter question was yes: the kinsei of “the Japanese” was “more feudal than modern,” whereas the early modernity of “Western historians” was “more modern than feudal.” As this introduction demonstrates, however, the term kinsei has nothing to do with feudalism. The evolution of the terms of periodization used to refer to the Tokugawa era tell us something important about the global history of conceptualizing historical time, particularly the surprising career of modernity.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Introduction
  • Edited by David L. Howell, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The New Cambridge History of Japan
  • Online publication: 15 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108283748.002
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  • Introduction
  • Edited by David L. Howell, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The New Cambridge History of Japan
  • Online publication: 15 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108283748.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by David L. Howell, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The New Cambridge History of Japan
  • Online publication: 15 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108283748.002
Available formats
×