History: Reviews of New Books

ISSN: 0361-2759 (Print) 1930-8280 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vhis20

Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa

Japan

Ardath W. Burks

To cite this article: Ardath W. Burks (1975) Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa
Japan, History: Reviews of New Books, 3:8, 208-209, DOI: 10.1080/03612759.1975.9945018

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03612759.1975.9945018

Published online: 13 Jul 2010.

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Download by: [USC University of Southern California] Date: 19 June 2016, At: 14:44
 circumstances under which it later crum-
208 bled. He shows us which groups sup-
ported this front at different times and
how such support changed. The first book go, perhaps even a little farther, in his
to concentrate upon the position of
Muslims within one province-and this,
within the pivotal province from which
all leadership of Muslim separatism move- logical tendencies of Shen Pu-hai’s tirncs,
ments in India came-it is a substantial
contribution t o the historiography of
modern India. Once again scholars of the
“Cambridge School” of Indian history
have produced work of a high standard.
This is a book for professionals and a
general but scholarly public.
ROBERT ERIC FRYKENBERG
The University of Wisconsin-Madison
Creel, Herrlee G.
Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political
Downloaded by [USC University of Southern California] at 14:44 19 June 2016
ten works, o r of statements relating t o
those works, have survived t o the present.
Creel has gone as far as one can possibly
attempt t o put Shen Pu-hai together again.
He has done this through a thorough dis-
cussion of the overall historical and ideo-
and, in order t o elucidate many of Shen’s
very cryptic pronouncements, through
comparisons with what seem t o be simi-
lar ideas developed in modern administra-
tive theory. Creel finds Shen t o be t h e
originator of a practical science of ruler-
ship, where the ruler, in order t o control
a very large and complex state organiza-
tion, maintains his primacy and control
by restricting himself t o such “tech-
niques” ( s h u ) as dealing only with broad
and abstract questions (never details),
holding his ministers accountable for their
garded as “the founder of modern polit-
ical science” in Japan. After a wide exper-
ience in teaching, research, and writing,
his thought has settled somewhere be-
tween German historicism and English
empiricism, that is, in a mode similar to
that of men like Max Weber, Hermann
Heller, and Karl Mannheim. Maruyama’s
work was earlier introduced t o Western
readers by a translation of his Gendai
seiji no shis6 to kod6 (Thought and Be-
haviour in Modern Japanese Politics)
(1963, rev. ed. 1969).
The three parts that make up this book
were originally published as independent
essays in the Japanese journal, Kokka
Gakkai Zasshi, between 1940 and 1944.
In his Introduction t o this English edi-
tion, the author reflects on how he had to
make changes in phraseology, given the
reactionary political situation of that

more precisely delimited duties, and time, when a constant topic of debate
Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C.
intervening in the governing process was “overcoming modernity.”
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
446 pp., $14.50, LC 73-77130 through direct orders and commands only Part I is a treatise on the Sorai School,
Publication Date: January 28, 1975 when absolutely necessary. Creel thinks its role in the disintegration of Tokugawa
that the device of civil service examina- Confucianism, and its impact o n National
“Legalism” was one of the more enduring tions, though developed much later on in Learning, especially on the thought of
political philosophies of traditional China. China, is attributable as a general concept Motoori Norinaga (1730-1 501).
Although it failed t o survive as an inde- t o Shen Pu-hai’s ideas of depersonalized Part I1 is a brilliant exposition on “Na-
pendent school of thought after the Han personnel control. ture and Invention” (shizen and sakui)
period (206 B.C.-221 A.D.), some of its As in the case of Creel’s well-known and the contrasting institutional views de-
key texts were preserved and many of its books on Confucius and o n statecraft rived from these categories. The author
arguments and assumptions were absorbed in t h e Western Chou period (ca. 1100- makes the point that the direct intellec-
into the larger Confucian framework that 770 B.C.), t h e merits of this book lie in tual genealogy of “enlightened” thinking
guided the organization and practice of its complete control of sources, its clarity may have been its later foreign derivation,
Chinese imperial government down t o of presentation, and its urge to invest but such ideas could enter only because
recent times. Nor, apparently, was its ancient China with meaning and signifi- existing factors had earlier changed within
influence confined to China. Creel argues cance. And herein lies its vulnerability: Japan sufficiently t o admit them with-
that some of its leading ideas o n bureau- easily read, the holes in the arguments are out serious opposition. As t o “invention,”
cratic control were infused into the devel- all t h e more easily found; and determined Maruyama explains two kinds of bonds in
oping states of medieval Europe by way t o find significance, t h e distance between human society. One is “given”; one,
of the court of Roger I1 of Sicily (1093- the fragmentary and often ambiguous formed out of the individual’s own free
1 154). evidence and the forthright conclusions will. With one the individual fits into a
In China’s “Warring States” period the author draws o n the basis of that destined, fixed pattern; with the other, he
(403-221 B.C.), however, there existed evidence becomes all the more disconcert- has a plan and enters upon new social re-
several different schools of statecraft, not ing. Matters broached tentatively and with lations. This is as clear a definition of
all of them “legalist” in the strict sense, great caution early in the book have a “modernization” (kindaika) as we will en-
which were later taken somewhat incon- habit of becoming certitudes when taken counter. And it is related t o classic Euro-
gruously together as constituting a “Le- up again later on. Shen Pu-Hai is, never- pean thought: from “Status to Contract”
galist” school. The strict Legalists empha- theless, an impressive piece of scholarship (Sir Henry Maine) o r from Gerneinschaft
sized the use of administrative and penal and an important new contribution to the t o Gessellschaft (Ferdinand Tiinnies).
law, with heavy recourse to the correct study of pre-modern China. Represented in extreme form by And6
scaling of punishments and rewards as the Shoeki (active 195 1-64), the ultimate out-
most effective way of operating the JOHN DARDESS come was, of course, the Meiji Restoration
bureaucratic state. Another school, asso- University of Kansas (1868); and the Movement for Freedom
ciated with Kuan-tzu, a statesman of the and Popular Rights (187Ot). “Here the
7th century B.C., was especially noted ~~
doctrine of invention was a t last able to
for its elaboration of the institutional Maruyama, Masao (translated by Mikiso develop its implications to their conclu-
means states might use t o impose social Hane) sion in a clear-cut theory o f man-madc
and economic control over their people. Studies in t h e Intellectual History of institutions. ” (p. 3 12, author’s italics)
H. G. Creel, Martin A. Ryerson Distin. Tokugawa Japan Part I1 is really an afterthought, trac-
guished Service Professor Emeritus a t t h e Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press ing the development of national con-
University of Chicago, is concerned in 383 pp., $15.00, LC 70-90954 sciousness under Tokugawa feudalism. It
this book with yet a third wing of “Legal- Publication Date: March 24, 1975 seems much more familiar Maruyama, in
ism,” whose main exponent, Shen Pu-hai, terms of his explanation of “absolutism”
developed a science of executive control Maruyama Masao is t h e dean of Japanese in later works.
over administration, one that had nothing political scientists, now Professor Emeri- The treatises included in this volume
to d o with the doctrine of rewards and tus of Political Thought at the University constitute a milestone in the study of
punishments. of Tokyo. Just as Ogyu Sorai ( 1666- Tokugawa thought, certainly for the
Unfortunately very little is known of 1728), a central figure in this volume, is specialists. They are the first in-depth,
Shen Pu-hai’s life and career, and only treated as “the discoverer of politics” in systematic analyses of the style of Toku-
some 27 scattered fragments of his writ- Japan, so Professor Maruyama may be re- gawa thinkers. Professor Albert Craig of
History
 Harvard believes that “all who write on
Tokugawa thought must at some point
ask themselves how their work relates t o
Maruyama Masao’s brilliant elucidation of
the development of Ancient Learning.
. . .” (Preface)
Mikiso Hane, a former student of Pro-
fessor Maruyama, is now Professor of His-
tory at Knox College. The distinguished
British sociologist, Ronald Dore, translated
the author’s Introduction.
ARDATIl W. BURKS
Rutgers University
Peattie, Mark R.
lshiwara Kanji and Japan’s Confrontation
with the West
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
430pp.. $16.50, LC 73-2489
Downloaded by [USC University of Southern California] at 14:44 19 June 2016
Publication Date: April 25, 1975
lshiwara Kanji, chief theoretician of
Japan’s military establishment during the
1930s, was a man of many contradictions.
Chief architect of the Manchurian con-
quest of 1931, h e was firmly opposed to
the renewal and expansion of the conflict
with China in 1937. A devotee of Nichiren
Buddhism’s “mind over matter” precepts,
he nevertheless castigated his military
colleagues for their cavalier attitude
toward material shortcomings in modern
warfare.
The writer, who lived ten years in
Japan as a U.S. government employee
before entering the academic profession,
presents the first detailed account of
Ishiwara’s thought and influence t o appear
in Fnglish. Japanese-language materials
provide the bulk of his sources, and these
present t h e reader with a striking picture
of the self-righteous and grandiose qual-
ities of Japanese militarism.
Ishiwara’s about-face o n China policy
in 1937 was determined by his awareness
of Japan’s material limitations. While the
takeover of Manchuria was a great boon
in terms of securing vital raw materials,
the rest of China was t o be seen as more
of a political morass than a valuable impe-
rial holding. Ishiwara failed t o anticipate
China’s devotion t o the recovery of
Manchuria, and indeed this remained a
blind spot for him right u p to his forced
retirement from the army in 1941. Ignor-
ing the fact that the seeds of the general
war were planted by his own hand in
Manchuria in 193 1, he ended u p calling
General Tojo a criminal who ought t o
be executed, in a speech before Kyoto
University students early in 194 1.
The writer points out that Ishiwara’s
view of the China war was dominated by
his vision of the future. In that vision,
Japan stood in the vanguard of a Far East-
ern racial union in a cataclysmic military
showdown with the West. In preparation
for this “war t o end war,” it was necessary
for Japan t o cultivate China’s friendship,
and avoid entanglements that would
interfere with the marshaling of resources.
July 1975
The writer does not make clear the fact
that, after 1937, the decline of Ishiwara’s
influence as an ideologue was largely a
matter of his colleagues’ fear of a two-
front invasion by China and the Soviet
Union of the Manchurian salient. This
point is brought out in J. H. Boyle’s
China and Japan at War, 1937-1945. (Boyle
devotes a chapter t o lshiwara’s influence,
but does not go very far with the vision-
ary aspects of his thought.) The envisioned
future was more real to Ishiwara than the
rude present, and his colleagues found his
attitude toward the China war inexplicable
and fanciful.
The writer could also have gone a bit
further with his exposition of the influ-
ence of the German military historian,
Hans Delbruck, o n his subject. If, as he
states, it was a dominant influence, its
specific nature should be clearly iden-
tified, and the reader should not be re-
ferred t o another source.
GEORGE F. BOTJER
University of Tampa
Roff, Margaret Clark
The Politics of Belonging: Political Change
in Sabah and Sarawak
(East Asian Historical Monographs)
New York: Oxford University Press
202 pp., $16.00
Publication Date: February 27, 1975
This book is a good work o n current poli-
tics of East Malaysia. It is divided into six
chapters and has two important appen-
dixes o n elections t o the Legislative
Assembly of Sabah in 1967 and Parlia-
mentary elections in Sabah of 1970. It
also contains a useful bibliography con-
sisting of major works on Malaysia.
Margaret Roff, a student of North
Borneo areas, appears t o have considerable
knowledge about this region where she
lived for long and has developed good per-
sonal contacts with local politicians. After
dealing with general methodology and
philosophy of politics in the introduction
she gives historical backgrmnd t o put the
readers in proper perspective t o enable
them t o understand politics in East Malay-
sia. Her discussion o n the formation of
political parties in Sabah and Sarawak in
the third chapter lacks depth and she has
failed t o go deeper into party politics. But
the next two chapters in which she deals
with current politics in t h e two states
could b e described as the heart of the book
and provide t h e readers with good under-
standing of the politics and the personal-
ities involved.
The author also discusses the impor-
tance of Islamic faith and is convinced that
eventually both Sabah and Sarawak will
submerge in the political ambitions of t h e
state of Malaysia. She says o n page 147:
“Soon Sarawak, like Sabah, will have no
opposition parties of consequence and
Abdul Rehman Yakub like Mustapha will
have tamed t h e jungles of Borneo politics
t o Kaula Lumpur taste.” 209
Lastly, she discusses the role of the two
states in the federation of Malaysia, their
status, and t h e federation’s responsibilities
toward them. She also discusses the
national language and religious issues and
their role in Malaysian politics. Here Roff
has touched an important but controver-
sial point by advocating that all minorities
throughout Southeast Asia should even-
tually be assimilated into the national
culture of a given country. This issue is
not confined to Malaysia alone and people
in different countries may see it in differ-
ent lights.
There are very few publications dealing
with politics of these t w o states. Among
them James P. Ongkili’s Modernization
in East Malaysia 1960-19 70 could be
compared with Roff‘s work. Both Ongkili
and Roff in their books cover the same
area and the same period. But Ongkili has
covered a wide range of subjects, political,
economic, etc., while Roff has specifically
dealt with politics. Margaret Roff‘s book
is expected t o have greater readership as
it deals with an important region in South-
east Asia which has greater interest in
world politics today.
ASAD HUSAIN
Northeastern Illinois University-Chicago
Kerr, George H.
Formosa: Licensed Revolution and the
Home Rule Movement, 1895-1945
Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii
265 pp., $12.50, LC 73-91458
Publication Date: November 21, 1974
The “elder statesman” among Taiwanists
has given us another important volume
about a significant, if forgotten, time in
the island’s history. George H. Kerr is
best known for his Formosa Betrayed.
Now, in this book, he moves back beyond
betrayal by the mainland Nationalist
Chinese to examine the formative years
of Japanese Formosan control. The author
has studied, resided, and served Formosa
as a diplomat involved in the island’s fate
for many years. No one could be better
qualified.
The book, like Formosa’s past, has a
symmetrical plot. It begins at the end of
the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 with the
Chinese cession of Formosa t o Japan. The
next half-century saw the rising sun of
Japan’s empire throughout Asia. Formosa
was its first and among its most enduring
dependencies. The Manchus had made
scant headway in controlling Formosa.
Japan, fresh on the heels of its own resto-
ration, set about to extend and externalize
its model throughout its empire (a path
followed by Japan’s primary Asian adver-
sary, the United States, shortly thereafter).
Japanese inspired reforms worked
almost as well as they did at home. Early
Formosan efforts t o resist Japan were re-