Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan by Jakobina K. Arch

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan by Jakobina K. Arch William M. Tsutsui Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan. By Jakobina K. Arch. University of Washington Press, 2018. 272 pages. Hardcover, $40.00. Among the handful of issues regarding Japan that stir global controversy today, the case of whaling is unique, not only for the longevity of the debate and the passion it occasions, but also for the breadth of worldwide opposition and the unusual vehemence with which Japanese interests have pressed their case. Following the international moratorium of 1986, Japan, Norway, and Iceland stand alone among developed nations in continuing to harvest cetaceans. Despite the contentious nature of the issue, however, the English-language academic literature on Japanese whaling has remained remarkably thin. Especially in light of the emphasis supporters (some [End Page 97] would say apologists) place on Japan's heritage of hunting, consuming, and culturally embracing marine mammals, there is a striking dearth of rigorous historical research on both the much-mythologized premodern origins of Japanese whaling and its modern, industrial forms. Jakobina Arch's concise but richly detailed and vigorously argued volume on the material and cultural impact of whales and whaling on Tokugawa-period Japan is, then, a very welcome addition to the historical literature. Bringing Whales Ashore is a testament to the power of a strong work of environmental history to inform and enlighten as well as to advocate and provoke. At the same time that it compels us to rethink much received wisdom on early modern Japan and its political, economic, and environmental footprint, it addresses contemporary debates over the legitimacy of Japanese whaling with surgical precision and lawyerly thoroughness, energetically asserting the relevance of history to policy and practice today. Arch's book thus manages to be both academic and activist, a window into a distant and (until now) little-known past as well as a thoughtful and historically informed intervention in the fractured public discourse on Japanese whaling. In the very broadest terms, Bringing Whales Ashore is a study of "how embedded the Japanese archipelago was in the maritime space around it" during the Tokugawa period (p. 12). The book provides us with yet another compelling historical perspective for challenging enduring stereotypes of a "closed" Japan that was a fundamentally agrarian society under shogunal rule. Arch uses whales as a focal point in her development of an "archipelagic" conception of early modern Japan, exploring how the Japanese came to catch, utilize, profit from, imagine, study, marvel at, and reconcile spiritually with these huge marine mammals. She demonstrates that whales were a "powerful presence" in Tokugawa Japan (p. 47), possessing economic significance, value as a natural resource, popular appeal as curiosities, importance as objects of scientific study, and a far greater cultural centrality than they have come to exhibit in Japan in modern or contemporary times. Arch begins by recounting the ecology of whales in the waters surrounding Japan, especially that of baleen whales, whose regular seasonal migrations through the Western Pacific along the nutrient-rich Kuroshio and Tsushima currents brought them close to the coasts of Japan's main islands. She goes on to describe the human ecology of the Japanese communities that came to hunt them, and here we learn that the detection, pursuit, catch, landing, and processing of whales together constituted an elaborate collective endeavor. Despite assertions of Japan's timeless pursuit of whaling, no evidence of "specialized, organized whaling groups" (p. 50) of the scale and sophistication necessary to make whaling a commercially viable, ongoing activity in Japan exists prior to the late sixteenth century. Arch details the particular techniques used by Japanese whaling groups and their evolution over time, notably with the unique technological innovation of open-water whale nets (first used in 1675). Whaling was a "big business" (p. 49) in early modern Japan, with an estimated ninety groups employing 27,000 workers at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Given the complexity of the enterprise, substantial investments were necessary to [End Page 98] equip and staff these coastal groups. The potential financial rewards were also sizable, however, and in the popular imagination of...