Customer Reviews

Japan's Renaissance: The Politics of the Muromachi Bakufu (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

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"Japan's Renaissance" is a really good counter point to much of the other scholarship that was done on the Muromachi period in the 1980's (particularly that done by Imatani Akira and other scholars found in the Cambridge History of Japan Vol. 4) and helps to flesh out knowledge that can be gained from studying the works of Sir John Sansom (the classical mainstay of Japanese historic scholarship). Grossberg takes a lot of time to focus on the economics of the Muromachi period, and his focus is centered more around trade and manufacture rather than the shoen (manor) which is prominent in much of the other scholarship of this period. It helps one to see that Japan's "feudalism" was much different than European feudalism. However, I did not ultimately agree with Grossberg's thesis that the Muromachi Shoguns were all powerful kings ruling from Kyoto. Much of the other work on the period demonstrates that the country was out of the control of the Muromachi rulers and that of the three shogunates (Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo) the Muromachi Shogunate was the weakest of the three.