War and State Building in Medieval Japan

John A. Ferejohn, Frances McCall Rosenbluth

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780804763714
  9780804763707
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780804774314
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Japanese History
• Index: History

The nation state as we know it is a mere four or five hundred years old. Remarkably, a central government with vast territorial control emerged in Japan at around the same time as it did in Europe, through the process of mobilizing fiscal resources and manpower for bloody wars between the 16th and 17th centuries. This book, which brings Japan's case into conversation with the history of state building in Europe, points to similar factors that were present in both places: population growth eroded clientelistic relationships between farmers and estate holders, creating conditions for intense competition over territory; and in the ensuing instability and violence, farmers were driven to make Hobbesian bargains of taxes in exchange for physical security.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• 1 - War and State Building in Medieval Japan
• 2 - They Were Soldiers Once
• 3 - Competence over Loyalty
• 4 - Community Vitality in Medieval Japan
• 5 - “Advance and Be Reborn in Paradise . . . ”
• 6 - Autonomy and War in the Sixteenth-Century Iga Region and the Birth of the Ninja Phenomenon
• 7 - Instruments of Change
• Postscript
• Glossary
• Index