Foreign Affairs and Frontiers in Early Modern Japan: A Historiographical Essay

要旨

When the Edo shogunate implemented maritime prohibitions (kaikin) in the 1630s, it marked the beginning of a historical era wherein the shoguns strictly regulated Japan's contact with the outside world.In pre-Meiji Japanese history, it represented one of the few moments when such hegemons, whether in Kyoto, Kamakura or, in this case, Edo, were powerful enough to usurp the prerogatives of coastal domains in Kyushu or such port cities as Sakai, and channel foreign contact through the center.The shoguns prohibited local state and non-state interests from formulating independent foreign agendas, sponsoring religious exchange, and conducting overseas trade without authorization.As the new historiography on the topic argues, it was a powerful assertion of the realm-wide legitimacy of the new regime in Edo, as well as an obvious birthplace of an early "national" consciousness among many Japanese and a critical element in the formation of what historians call Japan's early modern period, or kinsei This essay attempts to create an updated narrative of early modern Japan's foreign relations and frontier experiences, one that incorporates previously neglected topics and highlights the new directions explored by this vibrant sub-field of Japanese studies.This narrative suggests the selective exclusion of certain foreigners from Japanese soil should be viewed as a proactive engagement of the outside world, one which required a fairly sophisticated understanding of the religions and cultures of trading partners and the implications of exchange with them.That is to say, the Edo shogunate actively sought to authorize or prohibit certain domains from conducting trade unilaterally, to debrief repatriated individu-2 On the notion of "ecological imperialism," see

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