FOREWORD TO “MEDIEVAL JAPANESE CONSTRUCTIONS OF PEACE AND LIBERTY: MUEN, KUGAI, AND RAKU”

Abstract

Yoshihiko Amino is an historian who has perhaps exerted a greater influence than any other on Japanese historical scholarship from the latter part of the twentieth century down to the present. He specialized in Japanese medieval history. He always saw himself as an historian first and foremost, and all his life strove to base his work on sound empirical proof. Yet his ground-breaking work, which overturned many commonly held assumptions about Japanese history, had an impact far beyond academic circles. His topics were wide-ranging – including the history of the shōen (private estate) system, urban history, industrial history, the history of sea-faring peoples, women's history, and the history of the emperor system – and his work has influenced, not only those concerned with Japanese thought and literature, but also the world of film, and he has won broad popular support from among readers. He is rare among historians in Japan in that his name is so widely recognized.