Catherine L. Phipps. Empires on the Waterfront: Japan’s Ports and Power, 1858–1899; Noell Wilson. Defensive Positions: The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan.

Abstract

Both Noell Wilson’s Defensive Positions: The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan and Catherine L. Phipps’s Empires on the Waterfront: Japan’s Ports and Power, 1858–1899 use highly localized starting points—in this case, two ports located on Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu—to reexamine the history of Japan’s foreign relations in the early modern and modern eras. Especially when taken together, these studies offer refreshing perspectives on some of the most persistent issues in Japanese history, particularly the Tokugawa shogunate’s inability to cope with the new security challenges posed by imperialism (Wilson’s book) and Meiji Japan’s subsequent attempt to rise from that failure to become a full-fledged member of the Great Power club (Phipps’s work). That the authors refer to one another cordially in their acknowledgments only reinforces the complementarity of these studies. Although different in scope and thematic focus, Wilson’s and Phipps’s books are essential reading for early modern and modern Japan historians, as well as for scholars interested in foreign relations or maritime history.