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Book review: Hideyoshi
Nov. 16th, 2011 22:46Bibliographic Data: Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Main Argument: "A general who had unified Japan after a century of civil war, a governor who had laid the foundation for almost three hundred years of peacetime rule, and a showman without peer who had brought a new pageantry to power, Hideyoshi was the most remarkable main in premodern Japanese history." (1) It is Berry's understanding and argument, not only that the Tokugawa regime did not substantially transform Hideyoshi's settlement politically, but that the Toyotomi settlement was essentially federal in nature, a federation: the book is concerned with "the conquest and conciliation that made it possible, the motives that inspired an extraordinarily powerful man to share authority with his daimyo, and the particular expressions that his federal settlement took" (7).
( The man who shaped the mochi )
Critical assessment: I think, of all three of Berry's books, this one is my least favorite, but that does not mean it isn't an excellent study, because it is. I actually read Berry's books in reverse publication order, so it's interesting to see her, in this book, advancing positions that she would later substantially revise (as with the Rikyû affair).
All in all, this is a strong, excellent book. The professor from whom I purchased this book for charity averred that it is her best, which I can't agree with (nothing could better The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto, and Hideyoshi does at times communicate the relative youth of its author in the way that a mature work such as Japan in Print simply doesn't), but this one is very good, I only wish there were more books by Berry still to read. I don't know of any better discussion of Nobunaga, and Berry's evaluation of Hideyoshi is, on the whole, balanced and innovative. I do think she falls down on the question of the invasion of Korea, or at least, her own disappointment in Hideyoshi is at least implicit of some of what she writes; the larger complaint that she includes almost none of the Korean experience of the Imjin Wars can be answered both by the unfortunate fact that English historiography on the conflict is severely lacking and that it would be beyond the scope of her project: still, the lack is palpable. She revised and, I think, found a much more convincing explanation for the Rikyû affair in particular in The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto, but the major points of Berry's work here remain, I think, unimpeachable, if sadly still not entirely accepted. Still, I know what I think.
Meta notes: Berry is quick to mention the help of her colleagues, particularly Tom Smith, in making this a stronger book. Certainly it manages to transcend biography in a way that few comparable books do.
Main Argument: "A general who had unified Japan after a century of civil war, a governor who had laid the foundation for almost three hundred years of peacetime rule, and a showman without peer who had brought a new pageantry to power, Hideyoshi was the most remarkable main in premodern Japanese history." (1) It is Berry's understanding and argument, not only that the Tokugawa regime did not substantially transform Hideyoshi's settlement politically, but that the Toyotomi settlement was essentially federal in nature, a federation: the book is concerned with "the conquest and conciliation that made it possible, the motives that inspired an extraordinarily powerful man to share authority with his daimyo, and the particular expressions that his federal settlement took" (7).
( The man who shaped the mochi )
Critical assessment: I think, of all three of Berry's books, this one is my least favorite, but that does not mean it isn't an excellent study, because it is. I actually read Berry's books in reverse publication order, so it's interesting to see her, in this book, advancing positions that she would later substantially revise (as with the Rikyû affair).
All in all, this is a strong, excellent book. The professor from whom I purchased this book for charity averred that it is her best, which I can't agree with (nothing could better The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto, and Hideyoshi does at times communicate the relative youth of its author in the way that a mature work such as Japan in Print simply doesn't), but this one is very good, I only wish there were more books by Berry still to read. I don't know of any better discussion of Nobunaga, and Berry's evaluation of Hideyoshi is, on the whole, balanced and innovative. I do think she falls down on the question of the invasion of Korea, or at least, her own disappointment in Hideyoshi is at least implicit of some of what she writes; the larger complaint that she includes almost none of the Korean experience of the Imjin Wars can be answered both by the unfortunate fact that English historiography on the conflict is severely lacking and that it would be beyond the scope of her project: still, the lack is palpable. She revised and, I think, found a much more convincing explanation for the Rikyû affair in particular in The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto, but the major points of Berry's work here remain, I think, unimpeachable, if sadly still not entirely accepted. Still, I know what I think.
Meta notes: Berry is quick to mention the help of her colleagues, particularly Tom Smith, in making this a stronger book. Certainly it manages to transcend biography in a way that few comparable books do.
