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Makes Japanese sources accessible in EnglishAlthough much of the work on Japanese economic history is inaccessible to Westerners, many of Japan's leading economic historians have published widely in English. Combined with the work of Western economists who can utilize Japanese-language sources, this series assembles a wide range of English-language articles on the key issues in Japanese economic development. Individual volumes cover the interwar period, postwar reconstruction and growth, the textile industry, demographics, agriculture, trade, and the rise of commerce and "protoindustry" in the

According to the Marxist interpretation still dominant in Japanese studies, the last century and a half of the Tokugawa period was a time of economic and demographic stagnation. Professors Hanley and Yamamura argue that a more satisfactory explanation can be provided within the framework of modem economic theory, and they advance and test three important new hypotheses in this book.The authors suggest that the Japanese economy grew throughout the Tokugawa period, though slowly by modern standards and unevenly. This growth, they show, tended to exceed the rate of population increase even in the poorer regions, thus raising the living standard despite major famines. Population growth was controlled by a variety of methods, including abortion and infanticide, for the primary purpose of raising the standard of living. Contrary to the prevailing view of scholars, thus, the conclusions advanced here indicate that the basis for Japan's rapid industrialization in the Meiji period was in many ways already established during the latter part of the Tokugawa period. The authors' analysis combines original fieldwork with study of data based on findings of the postwar years.Originally published in 1978.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Today, Japan defends its controversial whaling expeditions by invoking tradition?but what was the historical reality? In examining the techniques and impacts of whaling during the Tokugawa period (1603?1868), Jakobina Arch shows that the organized, shore-based whaling that first developed during these years bore little resemblance to modern Japanese whaling. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from whaling ledgers to recipe books and gravestones for fetal whales, she traces how the images of whales and byproducts of commercial whaling were woven into the lives of people throughout Japan. Economically, Pacific Ocean resources were central in supporting the expanding Tokugawa state. - - In this vivid and nuanced study of how the Japanese people brought whales ashore during the Tokugawa period, Arch makes important contributions to both environmental and Japanese history by connecting Japanese whaling to marine environmental history in the Pacific, including the devastating impact of American whaling in the nineteenth century.

Ein von Sepp Linhart und Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik geleitetes AutorInnenteam nimmt die Entwicklung einer historisch faszinierenden und aktuell boomenden Weltregion unter die Lupe. Im Fokus ihrer Untersuchung liegen China, Japan und Korea. Der Reader behandelt eine Epoche, in der das andere Ende der Welt, Europa, gerade dabei war, einen wirtschaftlichen Zentralraum zu gestalten. Gefragt wird nach Gemeinsamkeiten, welche die drei Länder zu einer Region machen, aber auch nach den historischen Voraussetzungen, die jeweils spezifische Reaktionen auf die Herausforderung durch den Westen ausgelöst haben

That the ruling samurai class suffered increasing poverty during the Tokugawa period is accepted, without dissent, by all students of Japanese history. However, this view is based primarily on contemporary descriptions of the financial distress felt by the samurai class and has never been established empirically through the use of quantitative data. Most of the literature supporting this long accepted view is highly impressionistic and fails even to define precisely what is meant by increasing poverty. Thus, the writers on this subject use the phrase "increasing poverty" to mean variously a decline in real income, a lagging increase in real income vis-a-vis that of other classes (merchants, artisans, and peasants), or increasing "psychological poverty" experienced due to increasing expectations while real income was rising less rapidly. Authors not infrequently use these different concepts of "increasing poverty" interchangeably.