On a scale probably never before seen in the study of the Restoration outside Japan, the short chapters in this volume reveal unique aspects of the transformative event and process not previously explored in previous research. They do this in three core ways: through selecting and deploying different time frames in their historical analysis; by creative experimentation with different spatial units through which to ascertain historical experience; and by innovative selection of unique and highly original topics for analysis. The volume offers students and teachers of Japanese history, modern history, and East Asian studies an important resource for coming to grips with the multifaceted nature of Japan’s nineteenth-century transformation.
The volume will also have broader appeal to scholars working in fields such as early modern/modern world history, global history, Asian modernities, gender studies, economic history, and postcolonial studies.
Timothy D. Amos is Associate Professor in Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on marginality in Japan from the early modern period through to the present. He recently published Caste in Early Modern Japan: Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order in Eastern Japan (Routledge, 2020).
Akiko Ishii is Research Fellow at the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the concepts of population and development in early modern and modern Japan.