Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History

Stefan Tanaka

ISBN 10: 0520077318 / ISBN 13: 9780520077317

Published by Univ of California Pr, 1993

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0520077318I3N00

Synopsis:

This study examines how Japanese historians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries created the equivalent of an "Orient" for their new nation state. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan faced the necessity of becoming modern while both shedding the Western characterization of "Oriental" and maintaining its own identity. The concept of "toyoshi" (Oriental studies) made it possible to fit the changes of the previous century - the arrival of the West with its technical and cultural baggage and the decline of China - into a comprehensive ideological system. Unlike other scholars, who depict the encounter between Japan and the West as a struggle between modernity and tradition, Tanaka argues that the Japanese were, in fact, attempting to use a variety of pasts - Chinese, Indian, and proto-historic Japanese - to construct an identity that was both modern and Asian.

Review: "Fascinating. . . . Tanaka has provided a rich account of the ways in which Japanese historians adopted and adapted European ideas of progress and cultural identity in order to reformulate their ideological relationship to China. An impressive work of scholarship."--Talal Asad, "New School for Social Research

Bibliographic Details

Title: Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History
Publisher: Univ of California Pr
Publication Date: 1993
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket