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This is a straightforward narrative of the development of Japanese civilization from 1334 to 1615 by the author of Japan: A Short Cultural History. While complete in itself, it is also the first volume of a three-volume work which will be the first large-scale, comprehensive history of Japan. Taken as a whole, the projected history represents the culmination of the life work of perhaps the most distinguished historian now writing on Japan. Unlike the renowned Short Cultural History, it is concerned mainly with political and social phenomena and only incidentally touches on religion, literature, and the arts. The treatment is primarily descriptive and factual, but the author offers some pragmatic interpretations and suggests comparisons with the history of other peoples. A History of Japan: 1334-1615 describes the growth of a new feudal hierarchy, the ebb and flow of civil war, the rise and fall of great families, and the development amidst extreme political disorder of remarkable new features in institutional and economic life. This is the period of expanding relations with other parts of Asia and of the arrival of traders and missionaries from European countries--the first contact of Japan with the West. The volume ends with an account of the abortive invasion of Korea and the last outburst of the civil war that was terminated in 1615 by the victory of the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns, Ieyasu.
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As in the first book in this series, Sansom once again cleverly combines narrative tales of action with analysis. For sheer brutality and callous disregard for human life under pre-modern ethical standards, the tales of Hideyoshi's treatment of his son, Hidetsugu, make chilling reading. The civil war period occasionally makes for a bewildering welter of names but the author generally steers a clear course through the flotsam. There is also considerable discussion of the Western influences that began to be felt in Japan with the advent of the Jesuit missions there under Francis Xavier. Sansom claims that many authors have made too much of the West's influence during this period but still devotes considerable time to Christianity and the Japanese response to it. A lengthy discussion of Japan's Korean invasion is also included.
This second book in the series is just as good or better than the first. It contains a similar selection of maps, charts, timelines and family trees and also has several short appendices expanding details of the text. It contains its own annotated bibliography and an extensive index. If you enjoyed the first book in this set, the second will continue to delight. It should be useful to the casual reader of Japanese history or to the scholar, although, written in 1958, some of its views are likely out of vogue and some facts may be out of date. On the whole, it is a remarkable piece of historical literature. (