BookReview Example
Toby, Ronald P. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the
Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
In his book State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan, Ronald P. Toby examines diplomatic practice during the Tokugawa period. The study is generally confined to the early seventeenth century. The purpose of the book is to reevaluate the relationship between Japan and foreign powers at a time that historians have typified as a period of isolation. Specifically, the author wants to overturn the concept of sakoku. This policy expelled European traders from Japan. Due to the Eurocentric writing of history, the exclusion of Europeans from Japan has resulted in compartmentalized studies of Japan. Toby proposes that Japanese diplomacy should be viewed as active and autonomous, placing Japan at the center of the world rather than in an isolated periphery. From this stance, he argues that “Japan’s was not a cowering, passively isolationist stance, as the term sakoku implies, but a positive, constructive one, one that sought actively to reconstitute Japanese relations with the international environment in ways that advanced both international and domestic goals” (xvi). This stance, while focusing on Japan, reintegrates Japanese policy into the international arena. This review places particular emphasis on the early chapters of the book, as they are the most crucial in situating Toby’s work into the historiography of Japanese diplomacy. The first chapters dismantle the idea of sakoku, while the latter chapters illustrate the dynamic characteristics of Japanese foreign relations during the seventeenth century. Toby divides his argument into six chapters. The first chapter is historiographically focused. The main purpose is to evaluate the impact of the idea of sakoku in modern historical writing. The author asserts that the dominant view of Tokugawa Japan as isolated from foreign powers stems from the privileged place
Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
In his book State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan, Ronald P. Toby examines diplomatic practice during the Tokugawa period. The study is generally confined to the early seventeenth century. The purpose of the book is to reevaluate the relationship between Japan and foreign powers at a time that historians have typified as a period of isolation. Specifically, the author wants to overturn the concept of sakoku. This policy expelled European traders from Japan. Due to the Eurocentric writing of history, the exclusion of Europeans from Japan has resulted in compartmentalized studies of Japan. Toby proposes that Japanese diplomacy should be viewed as active and autonomous, placing Japan at the center of the world rather than in an isolated periphery. From this stance, he argues that “Japan’s was not a cowering, passively isolationist stance, as the term sakoku implies, but a positive, constructive one, one that sought actively to reconstitute Japanese relations with the international environment in ways that advanced both international and domestic goals” (xvi). This stance, while focusing on Japan, reintegrates Japanese policy into the international arena. This review places particular emphasis on the early chapters of the book, as they are the most crucial in situating Toby’s work into the historiography of Japanese diplomacy. The first chapters dismantle the idea of sakoku, while the latter chapters illustrate the dynamic characteristics of Japanese foreign relations during the seventeenth century. Toby divides his argument into six chapters. The first chapter is historiographically focused. The main purpose is to evaluate the impact of the idea of sakoku in modern historical writing. The author asserts that the dominant view of Tokugawa Japan as isolated from foreign powers stems from the privileged place