Book Review: A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600-1901, by Watanabe Hiroshi

• DOI: 10.1177/0090591714549509
• Author: Paulus Kaufmann
• Published date: 01 December 2014
• Date: 01 December 2014
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews 745

animation. What forms of political life will we be able to conceive? Still, the

question remains.

Author’s Note

I would like to acknowledge the financial support of FONDECYT (Project 11130663)

and of the Millenium Nucleus for the Study of Stateness and Democracy in Latin

America, Project NS100014, of the Ministry of Economy and Tourism of Chile.

Author Biography

Diego Rossello is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Pontificia Universidad

Católica de Chile. His work appeared in journals such as New Literary History,

Theory and Event, and Revista de Filosofía.

A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600-1901, by Watanabe Hiroshi. Tokyo:

International House of Japan.

Reviewed by: Paulus Kaufmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich

DOI: 10.1177/0090591714549509

Watanabe Hiroshi’s book A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600-

1901 is the fruit of more than forty years of research and teaching on early

modern Japanese political thought. It basically grew out of Watanabe’s lec-

tures for undergraduates at the University of Tokyo and although it is based

on academic research undertaken for many years, it mainly addresses the

interested but non-specialist reader. Watanabe’s book appeared 2010 in

Japanese, the excellent English translation by David Noble was published

two years later. The book is of the highest value, especially for the Western

reader as it is one of the few publications in Western languages that gives a

broad and balanced overview of the fascinating political discourse that pro-

ceeded from Confucian ideas and developed in Japan from the seventeenth

century on until it came to an end at the turn of the twentieth century when

Western thought almost completely superseded the Confucian tradition.

In twenty-two chapters Watanabe presents the main protagonists and top-

ics of Japanese political thought from 1600 to 1901. The choice of this period

of time is unusual as it does not follow the common historical periodization

that starts from 1600 or 1603 and ends in 1868, making up the so-called Edo-

or Tokugawa-period. Watanabe chooses to go beyond this period and cover

three entire centuries because he is mainly interested in the political discourse