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The People in History: Recent Trends in Japanese Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Carol Gluck
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Abstract

In the 1960s a group of Japanese historians responded to the contemporary bureaucratic superstate by embarking on a search for a popular past. They began to reexamine Japan's modern experience from the point of view of the people, not the elite, and with special emphasis not on political events but on social forces and attitudes. They rejected Marxism and modernization theory as alien and limiting and sought instead an indigenous methodology that might better fit the Japanese case because it was derived from it. By choosing topics that suggested the importance of popular energies in the development of modern Japan, they endeavored to enlarge the canvas of social history by bringing the people into it as significant subjects of historical change. Their scholarly efforts have drawn the attention of Japanese within and without academic circles and, as this introductory critical essay suggests, may usefully draw that of Western readers as well.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , November 1978 , pp. 25 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1978

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References

1 Irokawa Daikichi, Kano Masanao, Haga Noboru and Yasumaru Yoshio are the most prolific Minshūshi writers; among others more or less involved in similar work are Murakami Shigeyoshi, Takagi Shunsuke, Saitō Hiroshi, Fukawa Kiyoshi, Matsuura Rei, ōhama Tetsuya, Sakurai Tokutarō, as well as their students and disciples.

The term Minshūshi appeared later than the work it describes: Kano established a Minshūshi kenkyūkai at Waseda in the late 1960s and alluded to the “Irokawa age” of historiography in “Meiji hyakunen'go no kindaishi kenkyū,” Minshūshi kenkyū, 7 (1969), 6.Google Scholar The term became more publicly established in the 1970s with the appearance of studies like Noboru's, HagaMinshūshi no sōzō (Tokyo: NHK bukkusu, 1974)Google Scholar, [hereafter Minshūshi]; and Hiroshi, Saitō, Minshūshi no kōzō: Nihon kindaika no kitei kara (Tokyo: Shinhyoron, 1975)Google Scholar. A brief bibliography of Minshūshi writings is appended here.

2 Masanao, Kano, Shihonshugi keiseiki no chitsujo ishiki (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1969), p. 4Google Scholar. Also Daikichi, Irokawa, Shinpen Meiji seishinshi (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1973), pp. iv–ix [hereafter Shinpen]; and Haga, Minshu shi, p. 5.Google Scholar

3 The information for this collective biographical sketch was gathered both from the written work of these authors and from interviews held in Tokyo in 1973. If not otherwise identified, all quotations in the first two sections are from the interviews.

4 Kano, Shihonshugi keiseiki, p. i; see also Irokawa, Rekishi no hōhō (Tokyo: Yamato shobō, 1977), pp. 134–35 and 226–27.

5 “Konmintō to Jiyūtō,” Rekishigaku ken-kyu. No. 247 (Nov. 1960), pp. 1–30. See also Shinpen, pp. 298–358. For the influence of An-po on this research, see Rekishi no hoho, p. 246.

6 Masanao, Kano, “Meiji kōki ni okeru koku-min soshikika no katei,” Shikan, 69 (1964)Google Scholar, a study of the Home Ministry's “rural improve ment program” in the late Meiji period.

7 Yoshio, Yasumaru, “Nihon kindaika to minshū shisō,” Nihon no kindaika to minshū shisō (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1974), p. 8Google Scholar; originally printed in Nihonshi kenkyū, Nos. 78–79 (1965). For his 1960 lecture, “Kindaiteki shakai no keisei,” see Nihonshi kenkyū. No. 53 (1961), pp. 46–61.

8 Haga, Minshūshi, pp. 72–73. Also Iroka-wa, , Rekishika no mo to yume (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1974), pp. 217–22.Google Scholar

9 Masanao, Kano, Nihon kindaika no shiso (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1972), pp. ii–iv.Google Scholar

10 Irokawa, Shinpen, p. iv.

11 Here Irokawa, who was less affected by his early contacts with Marxism, is the exception. Marxism was not only “too theoretical,” he recalls, but it also disallowed his intense interest in questions of nationalism.

12 See Noboru, Haga, Whan kindai Nibon shigaku shisoshi (Tokyo: Kashiwagi shobo, 1974). pp. 381–94.Google Scholar Also Keiji, Nagahara, “Sengo Nihonshigaku no tenkai to shochōryū,” in Sengo Nihonshigaku no tenkai, Vol. 24 of Iwanami kōza Nihon rekishi (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977), pp. 18–33.Google Scholar

13 Masanao, Kano, “Nihon bunkaron no rekishi,” Shigaku zasshi, 7, No. 3 (1978), 22–24.Google Scholar

14 The word for “Asian-escapist” is datsuateki. Meiji no bunka (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970), p. 279.Google Scholar

15 They take umbrage, for example, at what they regard as Weberian pontificating about the characteristics of Eastern religions, and they frequently criticize Maruyama's assertion that Japan lacks “an intellectual tradition to serve as an axis” for structuring its history, such as the West had in Christianity. See Irokawa, Meiji no bunka, pp. 278–86.

16 See Masanao, Kano, “‘Kindai’ hihan no seiritsu,” Rekishigaku kenkyū, No. 341 (Oct. 1968), pp. 46–49Google Scholar; and Irokawa, Shinpen, pp. 539–45

17 The efforts of the Shisō no kagaku group to study “the common man” (hitobito) are similarly criticized. Although Tsurumi Shunsuke and his colleagues wrote on popular culture and other non-elite subjects, their attitude is regarded as elitist because it sought to “enlighten” the masses.

18 One book by a younger scholar at Tokyo University which has received praise is Masato's, MiyajiNichiro sengo seijishi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1973).Google Scholar

19 “E.g., Haga, Minshūshi, p. 74; see Samon, Kinbara, “Nihon kindaika” ron no rekishizō: Sono hihanteki kentō e no shiten (Tokyo: Chūō daigaku shuppanbu, 1968)Google Scholar, for a good discussion and a useful bibliography.

20 Masanao, Kano, Taishō demokurashii no teiryū: “dozoku”teki seishin e no kaiki (Tokyo: NHK bukkusu, 1973), p. 261Google Scholar. See also the outpouring of criticism on the occasion of the Meiji centennial in 1968, e.g., Rekishigaku kenkyū (Nov. 1967 and Oct. 1968), Rekishi hyōron (May 1968), etc.

21 Kazuko, Tsurumi & Saburō, Ichii, eds., Shisō no bōken (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1974), pp. 2–3Google Scholar, 146–47.

22 Haga, Minshūshi, p. 13; Saitō, Minshūshi no kōzō, p. 24.

23 Kano, “Seinendan undō no shisō,” Taishō demokurashii no teiryū, pp. 99–154; Irokawa on Hosono Kiyoshirö in “Meiji gōnō no seishin kōzō,” Shinpen, pp. 298–354.

24 See Daikichi, Irokawa, Yanagita Kunio: jōmin bunkaron, Vol. 1 of Nihon minzoku bunka taikei (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1978), pp. 213–19Google Scholar; Sōichirōo, Gotō, Jōmin no shisō: minshū shisōshi e no shitaku (Nagoya: Fūbaisha, 1974), pp. 10–19Google Scholar; Noboru, Haga, Chihōshi no shisō (Tokyo: NHK bukkusu, 1972), pp. 108–14, 136ft.Google Scholar

25 Irokawa, , “Tennōsei ideorogii to minshu ishiki,” Rekishigaku kenkyū. No. 341 (Nov. 1968), p. 8.Google Scholar

26 Seemingly less interested in Yanagita, Kano is ecumenical in his understanding of minshushi. See his comments on the eleven-volume series Nihon minshūshi no rekishi (ed. Kadowaki Teiji & Amakusu Ken [Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1974–76]), which despite its title was not produced by the minshūshi group. “Kokumin no rekishi ishiki: rekishizō to rekishigaku,” Iwanami kōza Nihon rekishi, 24, pp. 255–58.

27 Irokawa, Shinpen, pp. 226–44; Meiji no bunka, pp. 80–119.

28 Irokawa, Shinpen, pp. 8, 16, 222; many, of course, were members of the gōnōo, or “wealthy peasant,” class.

29 Hiroshi, Saitō, “Zetsubō no Meiji noson,” Kindai Nihon no shakai kiban (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1973), pp. 13–55.Google Scholar

30 Kiyoshi, Fukawa, Kimei Nihon no minshū rinri shisō (Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1973)Google Scholar, and Kinsei minshū no rinriteki enerugii (Nagoya: Fūbaisha, 1976).Google Scholar

31 Haga, Chihōshi no shisō, pp. 66–92. Though there were several variants, kyōdoshi (with its echo of the German Heimatkunde) was the most common word for local history in the prewar period, just as chihōshi is most freqently used today.

32 Shirō, Morita, Chiisai buraku (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1973), pp. 3–9Google Scholar.

33 For Irokawa on the jūmin undō (residents' movements), see Rekishika no uso to yume, p. 227; on the peasant, Morita, Chiisai buraku, pp. 229–37. See also Jirō, Kamishima, Kindai Nihon no seishin kōzō (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), pp. 22–89.Google Scholar Although the popular historians think that Kamishima's theoretical approach bears the touch of modernism, they often cite his distinction between the primary and secondary villages, making him by default their predecessor in the analysis of rural social structure.

34 Irokawa, Rekishi no hōbō, p. 202. Younger scholars have begun to remedy the lack; e.g., Tsuneo, Yamamoto, Kindai Nihon toshi kyōkashi kenkyū (Nagoya: Reimei shobō, 1972)Google Scholar.

35 Toranosuke, Nishioka, Minshū seikatsusbi kenkyū (Tokyo: Fukumura shoten, 1948)Google Scholar; Kunio, Yanagita, Meiji Taishōshi sesō hen, Vol. 24 of Yanagita Kunio shū (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1970), pp. 129–414Google Scholar; for a representative appreciation of this work, written in 1930, see Mikiharu, Itō & Jirō, Kamishima, eds., Shinpojiumu Yanagita Kunio (Tokyo: Nihon hōsō shuppan kyōkai, 1973), pp. 121–82Google Scholar; and Kazuko, Tsurumi, Hyōhaku to teijū to: Yanagita Kunio no shakai hendōron (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1977). pp. 64–80Google Scholar.

36 Meiji no bunka, p. 38 (the description is originally Yanagita's).

37 Taishō demokurashii no teiryū, pp. 38–94.

38 Though there are many examples, the work most often quoted is that of a modernist who employed Marxist categories: Hisao, ōtsuka, Kyōdōtai no kiso riron (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1955).Google Scholar

39 Masao, Maruyama, Nihon no shisō (Tokyo: Iwanami shinsho, 1961), pp. 44–52.Google Scholar

40 “Kindai Nihon no kyōdōtai,” Shisō no bōken, pp. 236–46; translated as “The Survival Struggle of the Japanese Community,” in Japan Interpreter, 9, No. 4 (Spring, 1975), 466–94. This article was much criticized, and Irokawa has since disclaimed parts of it (Rekishi no hōbō, p. 249). For his historical analysis, see Meiji no bunka, pp. 293–301; also, Rekishika no uso to yume, pp. 204–9.

41 Tokutarō, Sakurai, Kōshūdan seiritsu katei no kenkyū (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1962).Google Scholar

42 ”Kindai Nihon no kyōdōtai,” pp. 242, 255, 269.

43 Chie, Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 150.Google Scholar

44 Meiji no bunka, p. 295. The anti pollution movement in Minamata (a current interest of Irokawa) and the original Sanrizuka protests against the Narita airport are often mentioned as contemporary examples of the kyōdōtai in action; Sakurai cites Jalpak travel tours as present-day counterparts of the religious pilgrimages of the traditional village kō.

45 Taishō demokurasbii no teiryū, p. 24. Haga once described Minshūshi as “history of the heart” (kokoro no rekishi), Minshūshi, p. 12.

46 Shinpen, pp. 509–10.

47 Taishō demokurashii no teiryū, p. 34.

48 See Shigeyoshi, Murakami, “Bakumatsu ishinki no minshū shūkyō ni tsuite,” Minshū shūkyō no shisō. Vol. 67 of Nihon shisō taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971), pp. 568–70.Google Scholar

49 Noboru, Haga, Yonaoshi no shisō (Tokyo: Yūsankaku, 1973), p. 10.Google Scholar

50 Nihon no kindaika to minshū shisō, pp. 4–48, 56–71. For a different, but not dissimilar approach, see Kazuhiko, Takao, Kinsei no shomin bunka (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten 1968), pp. 2–107. Fukawa Kiyoshi tests and questions Yasumaru's hypothesis with specific local data and concludes that popular morality also contained within it a strong spirit of resistance— what he calls an “ethic of insubordination” (hifukujū no rinri), Kinsei minshū no rinriteki enerugii, p. 376.Google Scholar

51 Shinpen, Pt. I, pp. ii–v, 4–358.

52 Shinpen, pp. 343–52.

53 Shinpen, pp. 349–52.

54 See Hirota Masaki's criticism, “Keimō shisō to bunmei kaika,” Kindai, Vol. 14 of Iwanami kōza Nihon rekishi, (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975), Vol. i, pp. 343–48.Google Scholar

55 Quoted in Tsurumi, Hyōhaku to teijū to, p. 26; for a summary of part of Tsurumi's work, see “Yanagita Kunio's Work as a Model of Endogenous Development,” Japan Quarterly, 22, No. 3 (1975), 223–38. Tsurumi of course is writing as a social scientist, not a historian.Google Scholar

56 See Saitō, “Minshūshi no hōhō,” Min shūshi no kōzō, pp. 17–56.

57 See Saitō, Minshūshi no hōhō, p. 24; Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Work ing Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), p. 9.Google Scholar

58 The resemblance derives not from direct acquaintance or influence, but from apparently similar reactions, both to the changes Marx wrought in social theory and to the emergence of mass society, which has drawn the attention of twentieth-century historians away from political affairs to matters of social history. For Irokawa's remarks on hearing of similar work in local history in the West, see Rekishi no hōbō, p. 217.

59 Jiseiteki or jihatsuteki.

60 See Daikichi, Irokawa, “Japan's Grass-roots Tradition: Current Issues in the Mirror of History,” Japan Quarterly, 20, No. 1 (1973), 83.Google Scholar

61 See Noboru, Haga, “Bakumatsu gakusha no undō to ronri,” Kokugaku undō no shisō. Vol. 51 of Nihon shisō taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971), pp. 662–714Google Scholar; and Ishin o motomete (Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1976), pp. 85–122.Google Scholar

62 Shunsuke, Takagi, Ishinshi no saihakkutsu: Sagara Sōzō to uzumoreta sōmōtachi (Tokyo: NHK bukkusu, 1972).Google Scholar

63 Kano, Nihon kindaika, pp. 41–46.

64 Meiji no bunka, pp. 264–66.

65 Taishō demokurashii no teiryū.

66 Masanao, Kano, Taishō demokurashii, Vol. 27 of Nihon no rekishi (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1976), pp. 16–25, 352–54.Google Scholar

67 Daikichi, Irokawa, “Am jōmin no ashiato,” Aru Shōwasbi: jibunshi no kokoromi (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1975), pp. 179–258.Google Scholar

68 Nihon kindaika, pp. i-ii. See also Takagi, Ishinshi, pp. 13–14.

69 The repeated confrontation between the dominant bureaucratic tradition and its opposition is Tetsuo Najita's theme in his study of modern Japanese intellectual history, Japan (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974).Google Scholar

70 Kano, “Nihonbunkaronnorekishi,”p. 35.