Proving the way

Harvard University Asia Center

2005

xiv, 287 p.

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 245

Includes bibliographical references (p. [267]-275) and index.

978-0674017788

The ascendancy of Hirata Atsutane and the invention of kokugaku -- The formation of rival nativist schools : the Edo-ha and the Norinaga school -- The Norinaga school in Edo -- The sandaikō debate : mythology, astronomy and eschatology -- On a dream and a prayer : Atsutane's discourse of succession and the invention of a new nativist tradition -- Forsaking textualism : ancient history and the supernatural -- Bakumatsu kokugaku and the Hirata school -- Conclusion : centrality at the margins.

The primary goal of this book is to restore historicity to the study of nativism by recognizing Hirata Atsutane's role in the creation and perpetuation of an intellectual tradition that remains a significant part of Japanese history and culture. Arguing that conflict among scholars and intellectuals begets ideas, Mark McNally shows that nativism was rife with internal competition. The mid-nineteenth-century suppression of this multiplicity of views led to the emergence of what we now think of as "nativism." By focusing on the competition among the rival strands of nativism, McNally demonstrates that "nativism" resulted not from Atsutane's conscious attempt to formulate a new intellectual tradition but from his greater political skills at putting his views across.

Английский