Abstract
The predominant image of Japan during the “Isolation” period is that it was locked up and entirely secured from intercourse with Western culture. This is for the most part, and for the greater proportion of the populace, undoubtedly true. Yet by the end of the 1700s, there was a more dense concentration of medical specialists and scholars in Edo as well as in the broader Kansai region around Kyôto (the Imperial capital), who were procuring and disseminating a greater awareness of Western technology. On one level, it merely fuelled a vague curiosity for things arcane and there were many random iconic elements of Western culture that were adapted into the popular media. At the same time, the tangible applications of Western inventions undoubtedly contributed to the expansion of technical knowledge and, more significantly, a growing unease about Japan’s capacity to maintain its defenses in the near future.3
Thursday, September 4, 1856. Slept very little from excitement and mosquitoes,—the latter enormous in size. At seven A.M. men came on shore to put up my flagstaff. Heavy job. Slow work. Spar falls; break crosstrees; fortunately no one hurt. At last get reinforcement from the ship. Flagstaff erected; men form ring around it, and, at two and a half P.M. of this day I hoist the “First Consular Flag” ever seen in this Empire. Grim reflections—ominous of change—undoubtedly beginning of the end. Query,—if for the real good of Japan?
Townsend Harris, First US Consul to Japan1
When considered overall, I believe that although Harris now has access to the highest levels he is not one to be deeply feared. He is given to making numerous empty statements, although lamentably there is no-one within government who has the wit to understand this yet. Even so, if Harris’ utterances are put into practice one by one, it will fare badly for our sacred country; if they count for nought, then all will be well.
Yoshida Shōin (7 April 1859)2
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Notes
Townsend Harris, The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris, as reprinted in Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo Hensansho (ed.), Meiji Shiryō Senshū 1, vol. 1 (hereafter Shiryō Senshū 1), Tokyo University Press, 1970, pp. 34–5.
Donald Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720–1830, Stanford University Press, 1969, pp. 59–90.
Okada Takehiko, “Neo-Confucian Thinkers in Nineteenth Century Japan” in P. Nosco (ed.), Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 215–50.
Regarding political stasis within the Tokugawa system, see Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan, University of California Press, 1993, pp. 316–47.
Regarding Gutzlaff in China, see Edgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China, Putnam, 1964, pp. 107–9.
Regarding the Morrison, W. G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, Luzac, 1951, pp. 21–8.
W. G. Beasley, The Rise of Modern Japan: Economic, Political and Social Change Since 1850, St Martin’s Press, 1995, pp. 28–32.
Mukai Akira, in Yōgakuji Hajime, Bunka Shobo Hyakubunsha, 1993, pp. 231–2.
Mori Mutsuhiko, “Ahen Sensō Jōhō to shite no Tō Fūsetsusho”, in Houya Tōru (ed.), Bakumatsu Ishin to Jōhō, Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2001, pp. 13–26.
Also, see the report of Tokawa Yasukiyo as reprinted in Iwashita Tetsunori, Bakumatsu Nihon no Jōhō Katsudō, Yusankaku, 2008, pp. 353–5, for an example of how the Chinese account became incorporated into Japanese reportage.
B. T. Wakabayashf in Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayahi (eds), Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952, University of California Press, 2000, p. 61.
Miyachi Masato, “Bakumatsu no Jōhōshūshū to Fūsetsusho”, in Houya Toni (ed.), Bakumatsu Ishin to Jōhō, Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2001, pp. 219–22.
Mukai Akira, in Yōgakuji Hajime, Bunka Shobo Hyakubunsha, 1993, p. 241.
Matsumoto Kenichi, Kaikoku Ishin 1853–1871, Chuo Koronsha, 1998, pp. 121–9.
There is an extremely useful selection of Black Ships related kawara-ban with a lucid introduction in Tanaka Akira (ed.), Kaikoku, Nihon Kindai Shiso Taikei, vol. I, Chikuma Shobo, 1991, pp. 193–203.
J. Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856–1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 43–68.
Matsumoto Sannosuke in Nihon Seiji Shisōshi Gairon, Keiso Shobo, 1982, pp. 48–89.
Matsumoto Kenichi, ibid., pp. 260–3. For the original text of Kokuze Sanron, see Yokoi Shōnan, Shōnan Kikō, Minyusha, 1898, pp. 44–101.
Thomas M. Huber, The Revolutionary Origins of Modern Japan, Stanford University Press, 1981, pp. 42–59 and pp. 71–7.
Tokutomi Sohō, Yoshida Shōin, reprinted in Tokutomi Sohō Shū, Chikuma Shobo, 1974, pp. 224–5.
Huber, op. cit., pp. 59–68. Huber seems to suggest that there was an element of tactical posturing involved in this position; however, this does not seem to be a necessary conclusion and arguably Yoshida’s political tactics indicate that indeed the Mencian position was significant in a more intrinsic sense. For a more recent discussion of the intellectual influences on Yoshida, see Kojima Tsuyoshi, Kindai Nihon no Yōmeigaku, Kodansha, 2006, pp. 57–62.
Kasahara Hidehiko, Ōkubo Toshimichi: Bakumatsu Ishin no Kosei, Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2005, pp. 6–11.
Matsumura Masaie, Bakumatsu Shisetsudan no Igirisu Ōkanki—Vikutorian Inpakuto, Kashiwa Shobo, 2008, pp. 11–18.
See Miyanaga Takashi, Bakumatsu Ken’ō Shisetsudan, Kodansha, 2006, pp. 133–5. Beasley, 1995, pp. 79–84.
Ishizuki Minoru, Kindai Nihon no Kaigai Ryūgakushi, Minerva Shobo, 1972, pp. 32–48.
Andrew Cobbing, The Satsuma Students in Britain: Japan’s Early Search for the “Essence of the West”, Japan Library, 2000, pp. 56–60.
Alistair Swale, The Political Thought of Mori Arinori: A Study in Meiji Conservatism, Japan Library, 2000, pp. 64–9, pp. 205–9.
Alistair Swale, “America: The First Stage in the Quest for ‘Enlightenment’”, in Ian Nish (ed.), The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe: A New Assessment, Curzon Press, 1998.
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Swale, A.D. (2009). Japan Within the World System: Urbanization, Political Stasis and Western Economic Expansion. In: The Meiji Restoration. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245792_2
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