Hist122 – Lecture 9, Monday November 4, 2013
How did this film portray 60 years of Japanese history?
Who were the protagonists?
Tokugawa, would rule Japan for several centuries
Three and a huge great men who at various stages unified Japan
What else was happening in the background because we have learned history in a
different way?
Great men and their families but in the background you see western influence of
Christianity, religion, trade, is localized in western southern parts
Samurai being traditional type of warrior, carefully schooled with all these types
of rituals, manmade martial arts, swords, etc. but in the backdrop what is really
happening is a whole other thing connected to that
We have seen before somewhere else
In this 60 year period you don’t just have successive of men after a long period of
civil war, gradually centralizing and consolidating
Not just a question of strategy and personality but also the introduction of gun
powder
Same formula that was for expansion and consolidation of states had similar
pattern in Japan
Maintaining traditions of the Samurai
Real turning point is the battle, where he first broke with the Samurai code and
introduced gunpowder transforming everything
Similar to what you see in other areas
Comes from technological development, transformation of military, allows
successive rulers to centralize Japan
Not just the west bringing technology that actually had dynamic, important affect
on structure, there are other dimensions too
▯Influence of Catholicism in the countryside, problem with Christian connection
is that it destabilized the Dynamo power
Shogun rules over all the dynamo
Solidarities
Areas of Japan at e
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