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Thread: History Books and Research

  1. #1
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    Default History Books and Research

    I would like to solicit the opinion among those few on this listserv who are engaged in serious research on the propagation of budo in the annals of Japanese history. I am interested in starting a thread that lists significant English-language works by reputable scholars that can assist in the location of a given Japanese ryuha in its historical contexts. It is my hope that this thread could be used to inspire and channel those with a research bent, regardless it is amateur or professional, to give them a more positive direction, rather than relying on the often-schlocky hearsayhistory (sic) that we must endure to read.

    I would consider the Cambridge History of Japan as the most authoritative and significant work on this area of study. I have used this series in my own research, particularly volumes 2-4, but it is sometimes overkill, because the sheer exhaustiveness could perhaps scare away an otherwise enthusiastic reader. Also, as most researchers have their own collections, they are about $140 each volume ($160 CDN), making them an expensive but pretty jewel on the shelf, but out of reach of most people.

    Are there any single volume (or smaller multi-volume) histories that the learned researchers on this list might recommend, particularly focused on the Edo-jidai? I have come up with Totman's and the McClain texts as possible candidates, but I would like to know what you folks would recommend.

    Note: I am not including the obvious erudition of Dr. Friday's books on the subject of the warrior class within society, not to mention Kashima shin-ryu as a template of koryu schools. However, I am limiting the search to general histories. So, Friday-sensei, in case you're watching this, I ain't dissing your work, just so you know.

    Thanks
    Julian A. Straub
    Toronto, Canada
    Yoshinkan Aikido

  2. #2
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    I always recommend starting with Prof. Bodiford's essays in "Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia," ed. by Thomas A. Green. Unfortunately, this 2-volume set is out of print. Moreover, it was always very expensive. (Retail was US $175-$185 per set.) On the other hand, Prof. Bodiford's articles include extensive bibliographies that are reasonably narrowly focused on aspects of classical Japanese martial culture.

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    Dear Julian A. Sraub and everyone:

    I applaud your interest in the historical context of traditional Japanese martial arts.

    I am not sure how to recommend general historical accounts of the Tokugawa period. Anything comprehensive probably will not contain the information one seeks, while anything more narrowly focused likewise will be unsuitable for other subjects. Large multi-authored works, such as the Cambridge History of Japan you cite, usually are out of date by the time they first appear in print. Other, more cutting-edge scholarship might not stand the test of time. For this reason, bibliographies usually need to be tailored to specific research topics. If we focus closely on martial arts, then so little exists in English that one can easily compile a list of almost all the academic publications on the topic. With these caveats in mind, I have compiled the two bibliographies below, one listing only a few of the more recent works on general history and one more narrowly focused on martial arts.

    Good luck with your research,
    ...... William Bodiford

    ============
    ** General History **

    Adolphson, Mikael S.
    * 2000. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

    Berry, Mary Elizabeth.
    * 1982. Hideyoshi. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    * 1994. The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Conlan, Thomas
    * 2001. In little need of divine intervention: Takezaki Suenaga's scrolls of the Mongol invasions of Japan.
    * 2003. State of war: the violent order of fourteenth-century Japan. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan.

    Cooper, Michael, trans.
    * 2001. Joao Rodrigues's account of sixteenth-century Japan. London: Hakluyt Society.

    Farris, William Wayne.
    * 2006. Japan's medieval population: famine, fertility, and warfare in a transformative age. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

    Friday, Karl F.
    * 2004. Samurai, warfare and the state in early medieval Japan. New York: Routledge.

    Gerstle, C. Andrew, editor.
    * 2000. Tokugawa Japan: the social and economic antecedents of modern Japan. University of Tokyo Press.

    Leupp, Gary P.
    * 1992. Servants, shophands, and laborers in the cities of Tokugawa Japan. Princeton University Press.

    Nishiyama Matsunosuke.
    * 1997. Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868. Translated and edited by Gerald Groemer. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

    Ooms, Herman.
    * Tokugawa village practice class, status, power, law. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Totman, Conrad D.
    * 1980. The collapse of the Tokugawa bakufu, 1862-1868. University Press of Hawaii.
    * 1993. Early modern Japan. University of California Press.

    Totman, Conrad D., editor.
    * 1990. Tokugawa Japan: the social and economic antecedents of modern Japan. University of Tokyo Press.

    White, James W. (James Wilson).
    * 1992. The demography of sociopolitical conflict in Japan, 1721-1846. University of California, Center for Japanese Studies.

    ===========
    ** Martial Arts **

    Abe Ikuo, Kiyohara Yasuharu, and Nakajima Ken.
    * 1992 (April). "Fascism, Sport and Society in Japan." International Journal of the History of Sport 9, no. 1: 1–28.

    Bennett, Alexander, editor.
    * 2005. Budo Perspectives. Auckland: Kendo World Publications.

    Bodiford, William M.
    * 2001a. "Religion and Spiritual Development: Japan." In Green 2001, 2.472 – 505.
    * 2001b. "Written Texts: Japan." In Green 2001, 2.758–773.
    * 2002. "Soke: Historical Transformations of a Title and its Entitlements." In Keiko Shokon. Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan, vol. 3. Edited by Diane Skoss. Pp. 129–143. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Koryu Books.
    * 2003. "Monastic Militias." In Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Vol. 2, pp. 560–561. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
    * 2005. "Zen and Japanese Swordsmanship Reconsidered." In Budo Perspectives, edited by Alexander Bennett. Pp. 69–103. Auckland: Kendo World Publications.

    Bolitho, Harold.
    * 1984. "The Myth of the Samurai." In Japan’s Impact on the World. Edited by Alan Rix and Ross Mouer. Nathan, Australia: Japanese Studies Association of Australia.
    * 1988. "Sumo and Popular Culture: The Tokugawa Period." In The Japanese Trajectory: Modernization and Beyond. Edited by Gavan McCormack and Yoshio Sugimoto. 1988. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Friday, Karl F.
    * 2002. "The Cat’s Eerie Skill: A Translation of Issai Chozan’s ‘Neko no Myojutsu.’" In Keiko Shokon. Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan, vol. 3. Edited by Diane Skoss. Pp. 17–31. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Koryu Books.

    Friday, Karl F., with Seki Humitake.
    * 1997. Legacies of the Sword: The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

    Goodger, John.
    * 1982. "Judo Players as a Gnostic Sect." Religion 12: 333–344. Reprinted: InYo: Journal of Alternative Perspectives (Dec. 2001; available on-line: http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_goodger_1201.htm).

    Green, Thomas A., editor.
    * 2001. Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

    Guttmann, Allen.
    * 1978. From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports. New York: Columbia University Press.
    * 1994. Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Guttmann, Allen and Lee Thompson.
    * 2001. Japanese Sports: A History. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

    Harrison, E. J. (Ernest John).
    * 1955 (1913). The Fighting Spirit of Japan: The Esoteric Study of the Martial Arts and Way of Life in Japan. Revised edition. New York: W. Foulsham.

    Hurst, G. Cameron, III.
    * 1998. Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Inoue Shun.
    * 1998a. "Budo: Invented Tradition in the Martial Arts." In The Culture of Japan as Seen Through Its Leisure. Edited by Sepp Linhart and Sabine Frühstück. Albany: State University of New York Press.
    * 1998b. "The Invention of the Martial Arts: Kano Jigoro and Kodokan Judo." In Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, edited by Stephen Vlastos. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Mangan, J. A.
    * 1986. The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal. New York: Viking.
    * 1992. "Britain’s Chief Spiritual Export: Imperial Sport as Moral Metaphor, Political Symbol and Cultural Bond." In The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society. Edited by J. A. Mangan. London: F. Cass.

    Matsumae, Shigeyoshi.
    * 1987. Toward an Understanding of Budo Thought. Tokyo: Tokai University Press.

    Miyazaki, Fumiko
    * 1992. "Religious Life of the Kamakura Bushi: Kumagai Naozane and His Descendants." Monumenta Nipponica 47, no. 4.

    Needham, Rodney.
    * 1985. Exemplars. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Powell, William.
    * 2003. "Martial Arts." In Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Vol. 2, pp. 514–518. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.

    Rogers, John M., trans.
    * 1990a. "Arts of War in Times of Peace: Archery in ‘Honcho bugei shoden,’" Monumenta Nipponica 45, no. 3: 253–284.
    * 1990b. "Arts of War in Times of Peace: Swordsmanship in ‘Honcho bugei shoden’ Chapter 5," Monumenta Nipponica 45, no. 4: 413–447.
    * 1991. "Arts of War in Times of Peace: Swordsmanship in ‘Honcho bugei shoden’ Chapter 6," Monumenta Nipponica 46, no. 1: 175–202.

    Shahar, Meir.
    * 1992. "The Lingyin Si Monkey Disciples and the Origin of Sun Wukong." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52, no. 1: 193–224.
    * 1999. "Martial-Arts Fiction and Martial-Arts Practice: The Concept of Qi in Jin Yong’s Novels." In Jin Yong xiaoshuo guoji yantaohui lunwen ji (Jin Yong’s Fiction: Conference Volume). Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing Co.
    * 2001. "Ming-Period Evidence of Shaolin Martial Practice." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61, no. 2: 359–413.
    * 2003. "Epigraphy, Buddhist Historiography, and Fighting Monks: The Case of the Shaolin Monastery." Asia Major 13, no. 2: 15–36.
    * 2004. "T’ai-chi." And, "Martial Arts: Chinese Martial Arts." In The Encyclopedia of Religion. Second Edition. Editor in chief Lindsay Jones. New York: Macmillan Reference.
    * no date. "Meat, Wine, and Fighting Monks: Did Shaolin Monks breach Buddhist Dietary Regulations?" Kung Fu Magazine (available on-line: http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/TOC/index.php)
    **
    [NOTE: The ways that martial art fiction (novels, theater, movies, comic books, etc.) precedes and shapes subsequent martial art pracices is a topic that has received far too little attention by scholars. Shahar in some ways provides a model of the kind of research that should be conducted regarding Japan.]

    Shaw, R. D. M. and Wilhelm Schiffer.
    * 1956. "Yasen Kanna: A Chat on a Boat in the Evening by Hakuin Zenji." Monumenta Nipponica 13, no. 1–2.

    Sharf, Robert H.
    * 1995 (1993). "The Zen of Nationalism." Reprinted in Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism. Edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    * 1998a. "Experience." Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by In Mark C. Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Sugie Masatoshi.
    * 1988. "The Probelms of the Modernization of the Martial Arts of Japan." In Irie Kohei and Sugie Masatoshi, editors. 1988. Nihon budogaku kenkyu: Watanabe Ichiro kyoju taikan kinen ronshu (Studies in Japanese Martial Arts: Research Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Watanabe Ichiro). Tokyo: Shimazu Shobo.

    Thompson, Lee Austin.
    * 1998. "The Invention of the Yokozuna and the Championship System." In Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, edited by Stephen Vlastos. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Waddell, Norman, trans.
    * 2002. "Hakuin’s ‘Yasenkanna.’" The Eastern Buddhist, new series, 34, no. 1.

    Waterhouse, David. 1996.
    * "Notes on the kuji." In Religion in Japan: Arrows to heaven and earth. Edited by P. F. Kornicki and I. J. McMullen. Pp. 1–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Yamada Shoji.
    * 2001. "The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery." Translated by Earl Hartman. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 28, nos. 1–2: 1–30. (Available on-line: http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/...rs/pdf/586.pdf.)

    =========
    *** End ***
    William Bodiford
    Professor
    Dept. of Asian Languages & Cultures
    UCLA

  4. #4
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    Default :)

    Thank you Professor for the list. I am sure that many people, not the least of which myself, are appreciative of such an extended effort to put these resources in a single location.

    Best,
    Julian A. Straub
    Toronto, Canada
    Yoshinkan Aikido

  5. #5
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    Thumbs up Thank You...Also!

    Greetings,

    While I am familiar with about 1/2 the books on the list, the remainder were very helpful to have listed. Thank you...Also!

    Regards,
    TommyK
    Tom Militello
    "You can't hide on the mats." Terry Dobson sensei.

  6. #6
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    Default One More

    I would add another book, has an academic study of hiden with a chapter on yagyu shinkage ryu,

    Morinaga, Maki Isaka
    Secrecy in Japanese arts : "secret transmission" as a mode of knowledge / Palgrave Macmillan, 2005


    Best
    Michael Wert, PhD
    Associate Professor
    History Dept.
    Marquette University

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