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Full Description
The Quest for Civilization illuminates the origins of modern Japan through the lens of its cultural contact with the Netherlands providing a rare contribution to the field in English-language literature. Following the "opening" of the country in the 1850s, Japan encountered Western modernity through a quest for knowledge personified by Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi, two young scholars who journeyed to Leiden in 1863 as the first Japanese sent to study in Europe. For two years they were tutored by Simon Vissering - one of the leading Dutch economists of the nineteenth century. Following their return home, their work as government officials and intellectuals played a key role in the introduction of the European social sciences, jurisprudence, and international law to Japan, thereby exerting a decisive influence on the establishment of the modern Japanese state and the redefinition of the international and cultural order in East Asia.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction
1. Seeking the Bridge between Edo and Meiji Japan
2. The Study Mission to the Netherlands of Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi
1. The Dutch Constitution of 1848 and the Meiji Restoration
1. Dutch Jurisprudence and the Development of Constitutional Thought
2. Vissering's Legal World: Natural Law, Historical Jurisprudence, and Liberal Reform
3. The Dutch Constitution of 1848 and Taisei kokuhō ron
4. The Sorai School and the Reexamination of Confucianism
5. Nishi Amane's "Gidai sōan": A New Concept of Government
6. The Founding of the Meirokusha and the Birth of a New Knowledge
2. The Rise of Statistical Thinking in Meiji Japan
1. The Beginning of Statistical Studies in Japan
2. Fukuzawa Yukichi's Outline of a Theory of Civilization
3. The Intellectual World of Tsuda Mamichi's Hyōki teikō: Dutch Statistical Administration and the Leiden University Lecture Notes
4. Sugi Kōji's Proposal for a Central Statistical Bureau and the Political Crisis of 1881
3. Dutch Political Economy and Nishi Amane's Philosophical Encounter with Utilitarianism
1. Political Economy as the Twin Sister of Statistics
2. The Lectures on Political Economy and Aiseiyō no michi
3. Mill's Utilitarianism and the Deepening of Nishi Amane's Political Philosophy
4. International Law and the Quest for Civilization
1. International Law and the Opening of Japan
2. The Place of International Law in Vissering's Curriculum: Law, Civilization, Practice
3. Transcripts of the Leiden University Lectures on Diplomatic History and the Study of International Law in the Netherlands
4. The Intellectual World of Vissering's Lectures on International Law 193
5. Two Views of International Law: Vissering and Wheaton
6. Debates in the Meiroku zasshi
7. Regarding Asia: Tsuda Mamichi and the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity 247
Conclusion
1. Philosophy and Utilitarianism
2. International Law and the Vicissitudes of Foreign Policy
3. The Establishment of Constitutional Government
4. Legacy for a New Generation
Bibliography
Index
