ABSTRACT
Tokugawa Japan’. If the time and place suggests any picture at all, it is probably a Japan of samurai warriors, ninja, rice paddies and geisha. Asked to add a few political and social features to the picture, one might come up with a shogun, the country isolated from foreign contact, and a rigid feudal society of bowing samurai and commoners alike. What relevance does this picture of ‘traditional’ Japan have for a history of modern Japan except to present a stark contrast to the picture of present-day high-tech Japan, the second most powerful economy in the world?
