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Full Description
The first comprehensive history of the Ryukyu Islands region in English.
The Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan consist of around 160 islands and are home to about 1.5 million inhabitants. Across the islands' history, sea-lanes and trade patterns have connected them to the East China Sea region, giving them a unique vantage point on the region's changes and making them a useful lens through which to view and understand those transformations. In this book, Gregory Smits marshals his expertise to canvass the environmental, political, and social history of this fascinating area, emphasizing the diversity of influences from China, Japan, and Korea that have shaped it. Smits begins by tracing the islands' early history from the time of the oldest extant human remains, through massive inflows of settlers from Japan, until the emergence of a centralized state in the sixteenth century. He then traces the development of the Ryukyu Kingdom from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, examining its major cultural formations and the interplay of local and external influences driving its evolution. Finally, Smits ushers readers to the modern era, from the end of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 through World War II, the era of American military control, and on to the present. He concludes with their present-day status as a tourist destination affected by ongoing geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. Synthesizing decades of research, this book is an indispensable, comprehensive guide to the islands' history for scholars and nonspecialists alike.
Contents
Naming Conventions
Introduction
1 A Broad Overview of Ryukyuan History and Historiography
Part One: Prestate Societies, 35,000 BP-1490
2 First Peoples: The Earliest Inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands
3 Origins of Japonic Ryukyu: The Early Gusuku Era, circa 1050-1250
4 Expanding Trade and Warfare: The Later Gusuku Era
5 The Early Theatrical Kingdom and the Three Principalities Era in Okinawa
6 The First Shō Dynasty Era
7 Classical Ryukyuan Culture
Part Two: Development and Transformation of the Shuri Empire, 1490-1630
8 Shō Shin and the Shuri Empire
9 The Sixteenth Century
10 War with Satsuma and the Immediate Aftermath, 1570-1650
Part Three: The Mature Theatrical Kingdom and Its Collapse, 1630-1880
11 The Era of Shō Shōken and Sai On
12 Extracting Resources from the Northern and Southern Ryukyu Islands
13 The Mature Kingdom
14 The Ryūkyū shobun and the Creation of Okinawa Prefecture
15 Literature, Drama, and Official Portrayals of Ryukyu
16 The Tametomo Legend
Part Four: The Modern Era, 1880-2024
17 The Early Decades of Okinawa Prefecture
18 Midcentury Turbulence
19 The Era of US Control, 1945-72
20 From 1972 to the Twenty-First Century
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Selected Additional Sources
Index
