So again, these are admittedly minor points. The major issues come with Souyri’s evaluation of feudalism, his attempts to talk about sengoku daimyo as representing an organizational form in direct opposition to the interests of village “communes” (his word, or at least that of his translator), and his claims that the sengoku period represents a “renaissance” that lead to the development of a new, apparently more rational and modern state (again, this is the way it is phrased in his text). The choice to focus so much attention in his narrative on village “communes,” while admirable and clearly in line with Amino’s sensibilities, also sets up an entire class dynamic that I am not sure is really useful, at least not in the way Souyri resolves the issue when he summarily writes that Nobunaga simply crushed these local communities (which he clearly did not – choosing instead to recognize neighborhood organizations in Kyoto rather than attempt to disband them and offering various village federations protection in exchange for payments rather than trying to destroy them outright). Thus it is not the problem of not having enough details on the sixteenth century that undermines Souryi’s narrative, but rather that he appears unable to put all of the details together to produce a convincing explanation of change. But again, I recognize that my concerns over many of these points are likely to be unique.

As for the choice between Friday and Conlan, I actually assigned a bit of both. From Conlan I only assigned students his first chapter about the battle exploits of Nomoto Tomoyuki because it makes for lively, and hopefully sometimes disturbing, reading about what it meant to participate in a fourteenth century military campaign. Most historians I have talked to find individual chapters of Conlan’s book to be compelling but tend to feel that the overall argument is rather weak and not well developed. On the other hand, Friday’s book has the benefit of being very well organized, though it does seem to be perhaps too detailed for what most instructors might need in covering the late Heian through late Kamakura period warfare.

But again, these are just my opinions. I am eager to hear if anyone else has used Conlan or Friday, and whether I am simply being too dismissive in my criticisms of Souyri…

We also read selections from:
Tale of the Heike
Hurst, G. Cameron III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan.
Several Saikaku stories, especially ones about homosexuality.
Shively, Donald H. “Bakufu versus Kabuki,”
Helen Hopper, Fukuzawa Yukichi.
Ivan Morris, “The Apotheosis of Saigō the Great,”

I have the students write a historiographical review of some historical question from
the medieval or early modern periods.

On topic, can’t really assist with readings etc for the middle ages as that is not my field, though I suspect that the title “Age of the Samurai” will attract too many people who might be looking for the wrong thing. I’m mainly interested in finding out if there is indeed anything beyond the 征夷大将軍 translation than the obvious….

There was a week this past quarter where I had students read an article by Mass but most found it quite difficult to follow. I did not assign anything by Hall but, as I revise the syllabus for the upcomign quarter, I am thinking of adding his dated but still useful article on the development of various “types” of daimyo.

In order to squeeze this in to an already backed set of readings I will probably cut Souryi. While I admire his full-on appropriation of Amino Yoshihiko’s approach to Japanese history from the periphery, there are just too many mistakes in his text for me to use it at an introductory level, such as his baseless claim that the term “sengoku” was first applied retroactively in the Tokugawa period…