Category: HST267

This week, we looked at the early Tokugawa period, and the way that Tokugawa Ieyasu consolidated his power. Building on the pattern set by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Ieyasu broke up the fiefdoms of the Daimyo, ensuring that they never had the ability to pool their power. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading…

As the Sengoku period wore on in Japan, the composition and tactics of the armies who vied for power changed. Armies got bigger, with greater emphasis on large infantry forces, particularly those wielding pikes. With the appearance of Portuguese traders, firearms were also introduced to the Japanese Islands, and were incorporated into the various Daimyo…

This week, we looked at the era of disunity in Japan and the first two of the three unifiers. I really enjoyed looking at the general trends of Daimyo, since much of my outside knowledge was based solely around the three conquerors: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. In class, we went over some…

This week, we looked at Zen Buddhism. I had already learned a fair bit about Zen from my Religions of Japan course, but that was a few weeks ago so it was good to have a refresher. For that class, I read several primary sources, including Dogen’s “Fukanzazengi,” and the autobiography of Hakuin, who was…

This week, we looked at the transition from Kamakura to Muromachi Shogunate, as well as the growth of traditional Japanese art forms. During the formation of his new shogunate, Ashikaga Takauji learned from the mistakes of his predecessors and made sure to compensate his troops for their action. Here again is an example of a…

This week, we looked at the Mongol invasions of Japan. Wednesday’s article was interesting, and provided a new interpretation of the events of 1274 and 1281. I was very impressed by the materials that Conlan drew on for his research; in fact, his research seems like something of a case study for how to find…

At the beginning of 1183, a temporary lull that had existed as the Minamoto and Taira clans fought each other to exhaustion subsided, and the Taira turned their attention from fighting Minamoto Yoritomo in the east to his cousin, Minamoto Yoshinaka in his power base along the Sea of Japan.1 They did so with a…

This week, we started by looking at how to make our Show and Tell projects more interactive. I had already heard the presentation from my Modern Chinese History class, but I think that it reinforced the information well. I think that the most important idea that we went over was the concept of a hinge…

This week, we looked at the Kamakura period, from its formation to its decline. The biggest catalyst for the beginning of the Kamakura period was the exploits of the Taira clan, which came to power as a leading family in the capitol of Kyoto. In working to maintain their power, the Taira introduced large scale…