“Rethinking Japanese History” Yoshihiko Amino (2005) Review | “Common sense” was wrong

★★★★★ Also in Japan, they teach you that "Japan was always isolated and agriculture was the main industry". This book teaches you instead that how that "common sense" is wrong.

🔽 log 🔽
Rethinking Japanese History
Yoshihiko Amino
日本の歴史をよみなおす(全)
網野善彦 2005 (1991-)
Read 2024.3


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I started reading this thinking it's just another history book.
How wrong I was.
This book is actually about how you should forget what they taught you as "common sense"

We have always been taught in Japan that it's made up of islands, thus isolated, and we only focused on agriculture.
But when you stop and think about it, how is it possible that Japan was surrounded by the sea but we only ever made rice and vegetables?
And of course, Japan had culture and technology to go beyond the sea to have trades.
Japanese culture (or cultures, anyway it was only recently united) was complicated, very liberal with sophisticated technologies and commercial power.
Oh yeah.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Rethinking Japanese History (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies) (Volume 74)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Rethinking Japanese History: Volume 74 (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Rethinking Japanese History: Volume 74 (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies) (English)