Please address the topic below in a short paper of around 800 words (approx. 3 ½ double-spaced pages, but it is easier to keep track of
word count on your word processor—being over or under by 100 words or more will negatively affect your grade). Because these papers are
short, they need not conform to the standard five-paragraph essay format. You can be inventive with style or format if you wish.
However, the papers must be well thought-out, clearly written, and carefully edited. All papers must contain an original thesis
argument (see previous handout for “three tests for a good thesis), and must refer directly and specifically to relevant assigned
readings in order to sustain your argument. Lecture material may also be incorporated where necessary. NO outside research should be
necessary (in fact I discourage it—you should have all you need in the assigned readings alone). Regarding style and format basics, see
separate handout on “Stylistic conventions that matter.” Read it. Follow it. Implement it. Really.
TOPIC:
(Note: we will discuss many issues directly relevant to this topic in class on Tuesday, Feb. 16th).
Early modern Japan was, technically speaking, a developing country. And yet, it avoided almost all of the major impediments to economic
growth and well-being that we have seen in other developing countries in the modern period (e.g.: high population growth, high
fertility, high mortality/low life expectancy, low levels of education, low per capita income—early modern Japan experienced none of
these phenomena. Indeed, as we have discussed, it experienced the opposite). There are many ways to explain how and why the early
modern Japanese managed to avoid these typical impediments to growth. Some of the scholars whose works we have read emphasize the
nature of early modern Japan’s ethical and religious belief systems (Confucianism, Buddhism, Shinto, syncretic beliefs) as one possible
explanation for early modern growth and well-being. Some emphasize more secular developments (family structure, family continuity,
desire for prosperity, rationalist thinking, improvements in material culture). What, in your opinion, best explains the distinctive
growth profile of early modern Japan? Is it primarily spiritual, primarily secular, or some combination of both? Or neither? Refer
specifically to assigned readings to make your case.
Sources to cite:
Hanley, Susan B. Everyday Things in Premodern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN: 9780520218123
LaFleur, William. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780691029658
Vaporis, Constantine N., ed. Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780813349008
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