The Tokugawa Shogunate: Feudalism Perfected

Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan, Harvard (2002)

[ApostolicMajesty]

If you enjoyed this video, please like and leave a comment. It helps the channel a lot. Many thanks.

[LadyOfShaIott]

The 'Imperial Japanese Apostolic Majesty' at the beginning of this stream was wonderful! - a lovely touch. Thanks as ever for a superb lecture.

[johnnotrealname]

First and this was a wonderful stream, I first flowered on Japanese history with the Meiji restoration and the historiography constantly denigrates the Shogunate and I was surprised to read that they were so peaceful. I can never fully appreciate them for the persecution of the faith but it is amazing how controlling they were able to be, yet the sacrifices similar to what Louis XIV had to endure. You are correct towards the end, if you have a hereditary system, you lost power, Louis XIV's true power was manoeuvring around the Parlements and nobles, although loosing his judicial function mostly and the Shogun's was making himself indispensable.

[AndrewB]

The women who were consorts to the emperor were actually not always shunted away as you say at the end there. At least not once they became mother to the next emperor.
One of the biggest criticisms people at the time had regarding Yoshimitsu the dog emperor was his milksoppish dedication to his mother. There was a strong sense that a lot of his decisions were in deference to her, the anti animal cruelty law being one of these, likely brought on by his mother's Buddhist piety.
So yes, the women were more than capable of weilding indirect power, which is of course the best kind of power from the Japanese perspective.

[guilhemdemercia]

Unfortunately i belong to that unfortunate set of history enthusiasts who hang their knowledge of world history on paradox game's flavour events. I couldn't help but trace your narrative to a sequence of scripted events in EU4, covering the wakou pirates, the nanban ports, the ikko-ikki and kirishitan etc.

I was one of the voters for this topic and i am glad to have heard your lecture and enjoyed it very much. I have that jansen book you cited since my university days a decade ago, i now plan on revisiting it.

[j]

This is the stream that allowed me to discover this great channel

[Epicrandomness]

I entirely agree with the Edward I being the greatest English King. It's very poignant that the first English named King post-conquest would become 'Bretwalda', and that fact certainly wouldn't have been lost on him.
How much detail are you planning to go into on the earliest bits of English history? It's my personal obsession and I'd love to see it well represented.

[kiwikewl]

Actually... would you ever consider a stream on your own personal views on historiography? Pet peeves, preferences and approaches? Perhaps referencing particular discreet historical events to help illustrate these?

[realrhetoric]

I like your comparisons between France and Japan and look forward to hearing you develop them further in future streams. With regard to the merchants seeking to become (or otherwise becoming) nobility, there was a corollary to this in Japan. Perhaps you are right in asserting that it was anathema, but an anathema challenged nevertheless. Challenged, by a string of merchant academies in Osaka where the progeny of rich peasants and artisans, sake brewers, etc., were educated in the Confucian and Chinese classics. To a certain extent, they took a view of Confucianism that increased their status (that is another argument), but in a more basic sense, they simply took a title and became samurai as a result of their erudition in literary Sinitic. Such was the case of 頼春水 Shunsui Rai (1746 - 1816), friend of 松平 定信, Sadanobu Matsudaira, who left the successful Confucian Academy he founded in Osaka to take a job running Confucian education for the Asano family in Geishu-han. This ennobled Shunsui, giving him the rank of Samurai along with an annual stipend of 300 koku.

[AndrewB]

On the origin of the word samurai, it's actually from the verb "saburau" which as you correctly state, means "to serve".
The rest of the pronunciation aside, the "fu" at the end is actually not pronounced with the f. It is a case of standardized kana usage from that period where the "u" at the end of many verbs is written with the character for "fu".
This seems to be a holdover from a much older form of the language where the h line "ha ho fu he ho" were all p's, meaning if the word had existed pre Nara, it would have been something like saburapu.
In actuality, the word comes from a combination of the prefix sa (which seems to be no more than a particle used for emphasis, a bit like "ど" in modern Japanese) with "morau" (written "morafu") a shortened form of mamorau (mamorafu) "to protect".
I know this is incredibly minor stuff that doesn't warrant a long comment, but I'm very fond of classical Japanese, and who knows, it might even spark you to brush up your pronunciation a bit!

[paralleloctagon]

250 years of such a degree of social peace that there are barely any political events to speak of from the Battle of Osaka until the Meiji Restoration (some early revolts aside) makes the Tokugawa period almost ahistorical as compared to the Europe of the time. At least within a national context, the Tokugawa political system does seem like the 'end of history' within a system of self-perpetuating socio-political order. What could be better?

[realityisenough]

Pronounciation of some basic words like shikoku are the only thing holding this back from excellence

[Mumon]

I'm giving this a like based on the first 35 seconds. I don't think AM will disappoint.

[literallynothinghere]

All of this makes it clear that Japan prospered because it was an isolated island fortress free of immeidate foreign threat

[odond]

Great stream but way too compact. I think this wiuld have deserved an entire series for 10+ hours

[fromtheOLDWorld]

A lot of thanks to you @Apostolic Majesty, very enlightening emanation good sir.

[ingold]

Was the Banzai charge a later manifestation of their disdain for the material world?

[kiwikewl]

Thanks again AM. Great stuff.

Was wondering. Could you do a reccomend of your favourite Heterodox history books, essays and historians?

[Deathrune]

Excellent stream - thank you. Have you read James Clavell's Shogun, and if so, what do you think of his portrayal of Tokugawa Ieyasu ("Yoshi Toranaga" in the book)?

[cerdic]

@5:16 Completely wrong. The Hundred Years War in France may have facilitated internal peace in England, at least within the strictly English counties of England, on account of the rebellion of the Welsh which was sparked by France, but it did not prevent the neville/percy feud in the north which would eventually come to a head during the reign of Henry IV, and it caused absolute chaos in France, indeed technically the HYW began with a private dispute at saint sardos in 1322, throughout much of Aquitaine (the original borders stretching from Poitou to Auvergne) internal disputes would fuel the war itself, with sides aligning with the opposite of whatever their rival had. Theres a similar situation in Brittainy too with the rivalry for ducal inheritance. Plus throughout France there is the routier problem, which is a direct consequence of the HYW. Otherwise, decent stream.