Zimbabwe--The Political Economy of Decline: Discussion Paper 27 Book

Not an innovative book, Japan to 1600 was as the title suggested it would be. Still it deserves a four star rating because it was a solid study, well written and structured, a good mix of subjects and to top it off, it was exactly what I was looking for. It felt like the book equivalent of a seemingly simple dish that satisfies both your hunger and your soul, leaving you happy for hours to come.

As someone who is actively looking to expand knowledge on a variety of subjects and get a picture of the world and the developments of our species as cultures and societies; it often comes to pass that you lack enough material to work with. You lack a good source of information so you end up filling in the gaps with what you have, the History of Japan up to the warring states (Sengoku period), with the exception of court life in the Heinan period was one such gap. This book definitively helped me to correct and rethink some misconceptions I had about this history.

Wayne Farris, as the title suggests, gives a mostly social and economic history but rest assured that he does add a firm political analysis of each time bloc. The twist is that his analysis of elites grounds them in the social and economic fabric as are their political ambitions and limitations. Many books of these kinds strive to or end up making a separation between the two; the politics and socio-economic hovering around one and another but never really connecting. This book shows us how it should be, interwoven and cross referencing not only in a chapter but between chapters; social and political development as a long curved and hobbled path with no clear fixed ending chosen by an author with perfect hindsight.

This book most definitively took down Some of the misconceptions I had when I started reading; for instance gender. As with many people who lack the right information, you are tempted to project the present or the last known data backwards in time. I assumed, considering my knowledge of gender relations in 17th century Japan and onwards that the patriarchal system goes back a long time. Plot twist, it does not. With solid arguments does Wayne Farris show that female roles were a lot stronger and more prominent in the past of Japan and the patriarchal system (linked to a growing dominance of the Samurai class and favoring of single heir inheritance system (preferably male) ) was the outcome of a long process and not a given in Japanese history. As was the case for sexuality; Japan and sexuality is a "fun" topic for westerners as it both confusingly includes what we would consider perversions and far reaching celibacy. Again one is tempted to place this far back in the past; to my surprise this was not the case as it seems sexuality once again before the rise to prominence of the samurai was relatively free and not grossly deformed by a restrictive society as it is in modern Japanese history.

Speaking of Samurai, as said the book deals with elites as part of the social and economic history/changes and considering the over romanticizing of these Samurai has been over exploited theme, this approach was a welcome relief. Off course Samurai did not exist for quite some time in Japanese history and it was interesting to see their emergence, as both an adoption by the Japanese of a horse archer clan culture that existed in northern Japan and resisted imperial rule, thus the military factor but also as a result of a growing reliance of the Heinan system on local provincial tax farmers to enforce surplus extraction and sustain the elites, thus a social-political economic factor. Equally interesting, the buddhist clergy; whose unusual heavy involvement in politics was grounded in the increasingly popular function of monasteries to secure a future for the elites children, once again social history the starting block for political analysis. The political power of the civil bureaucratic elite was the most informative to me, as I did have some knowledge of the samurai and buddhist clergy. Thanks to Farris I have a better understanding on how the famous Heinan culture came to be and how the civic elite went from the shining center to the political fringe sustained by the shoguns manipulated imperial court. As with the rest of the book, social and economic factors shaping the political stage.

One last common misconception, the closed Japanese society; due to the Tokugawa policy of a closed society and the lasting legal and social hurdles for any non Japanese to live in japan, it is easy (and politically exploited) that Japan has ever since the first stone age migrants arrived, a monoculture chain of island. Grudgingly the Ainu culture is sometimes acknowledged but at the same time dismissed because Japan had conquered their lands and thus had brought them in instead of them coming in. Farris shows how this is wrong. Japan has been part of an east Asia interconnect flow of ideas, people and lesser extent trade economy. Migrants from Korea kept entering the country often as wanted profession experts invited by local elites for centuries, Chinese ideas about government and religion shaped Japan's history for centuries. It was not until the Heinan period that this flow trickled to a slow pace and would remain so for centuries to come but it had definitively shaped Japan to an extent to make the claim of perfect isolated Japan to be a myth.

Does the book lack in some regards? Hmm I would say that his chapter on pre-protohistory of Japan was rather limited as was his culture/ecological contributions, also he does have a bias. Even though he repeatedly brings up the point that the rice paddy culture and rigid social fabric we associate with 17th century Japan was indeed only fully achieved in the 17th century; it does come across at times that he considers the alternative lifestyles of foragers and fishers in Japanese history to be a hinderance to it's development. To Wayne Farris the crucial moment in Japanese History perhaps is the moment when starvation (the dreaded hunger springs) abate and I agree that less starvation is a positive thing for sure. In that sense, the foraging way of life that existed partially as a way to escape elite control and partially as a survival mechanism comes across as a perhaps necessary but unwanted factor in society. Even though he does at the same time emphasize that even if one could conclude Japanese social and economic conditions to be bleak, there were always those ho did manage and even those who did well for themselves. So It is not a book that forces the only continued growth of the economy is the right form of economy for all involved. Still tough I do feel he should have spent more time discussing fishery especially considering its importance in later Japanese history.

Above all Farris will stick by me with his opening line; History consist of stories about the past, intended to be true. I truly never read a better description of my academic trade then this. Japan to 1600 is good book anyone with a general history interest can enjoy and in particular those with misconception on Japanese History should read this book, as I hardly do it any justice in this limited review.

The main focus is well done - you can really follow the development of the country and its people very well and it is quite interesting and the text flows very well.

This is quite a contrast to the one thing that is not well executed at all, that is the section (one in each chapter, unfortunately) on women and family - because those sections are written as someone has jotted down their notes they gathered when they studied up on the subject. You can still pick up information from those parts, but they are not very fun to read.

(On a more personal note, the author seems to have a personal crusade on when to start calling shinto "shinto". Let's just say he is not in agreement with other books I have picked up, including The Cambridge History of Japan, so I take the liberty of not agreeing that the term can only be used on the religion not being Buddhism in Japan some time around 1300.)

The book also wins the price for weirdest sentence. This gem could be found after a discussion on infant mortality: "If the infant survived, for the first few years mother and child were united in a love free from the guilt inherent in sexual love." (p. 162) (Not is it just weird in its own right, which it IS, but it is also rather a contrast to the rest of book, that can show that Japan had a rather relaxed view on sex at this time...)

Still, the book on the whole is worth recommending!