Peter D. Shapinsky, LORDS OF THE SEA
PMJS Editor (M. Stavros)
LORDS OF THE SEA:
PIRATES, VIOLENCE, AND COMMERCE IN LATE MEDIEVAL JAPAN
Peter D. Shapinsky
Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies Number 76
A John Whitney Hall Book
Published by the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan
ISBN 978-1-929280-80-3, hardback, $65.00
ISBN 978-1-929280-81-0, paperback, $25.00
"In step with the maritime turn in global history, LORDS OF THE SEA takes readers down to the shore for a fresh look at Japan in the heyday of the samurai. Reading against the grain of a terracentric archive, Shapinsky demonstrates beyond a doubt the importance of sea power to late medieval Japanese society—as well as to the consolidation of an early modern order, in the archipelago and beyond. Essential reading." — Kären Wigen, Professor and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University
LORDS OF THE SEA revises our understanding of the epic political, economic, and cultural transformations of Japan’s late medieval period (ca. 1300–1600) by shifting the conventional land-based analytical framework to one centered on the perspectives of seafarers who, though usually dismissed as “pirates,” thought of themselves as sea lords. Over the course of these centuries, Japan’s sea lords became maritime magnates who wielded increasing amounts of political and economic authority by developing autonomous maritime domains that operated outside the auspices of state authority. They played key roles in the operation of networks linking Japan to the rest of the world, and their protection businesses, shipping organizations, and sea tenure practices spread their influence across the waves to the continent, shaping commercial and diplomatic relations with Korea and China.
Japan’s land-based authorities during this time not only came to accept the autonomy of “pirates” but also competed to sponsor sea-lord bands who could administer littoral estates, fight sea battles, protect shipping, and carry trade. In turn, prominent sea-lord families expanded their dominion by shifting their locus of service among several patrons and by appropriating land-based rhetorics of lordship, which forced authorities to recognize them as legitimate lords over sea-based domains.
By the end of the late medieval period, the ambitions, tactics, and technologies of sea-lord mercenary bands proved integral to the naval dimensions of Japan’s sixteenth-century military revolution. Sea lords translated their late medieval autonomy into positions of influence in early modern Japan and helped make control of the seas part of the ideological foundations of the state.
Richard Bowring
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Midori Yoshimoto reviews Imagination without Borders in the College Art Association Reviews.
Ann Marie L. Davis reviews Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan in The Journal of Asian Studies.
Lawrence Marceau reviews The Female as Subject in the Journal of Japanese Studies.
Marcia Yonemoto of the University of Colorado has written a review article for JESHO 55 (2012) titled "Women, Words, and Images in Early Modern and Modern Japan." In it she reviews our books Imagination without Borders, The Female as Subject, and Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan. She writes, "The brevity of this review cannot do justice to the richness of the material and the complexity of analysis these three books and eighteen separate authors provide. The Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan should be commended for making these volumes available to the reading public, and especially to students and teachers seeking accessible and stimulating secondary works on women’s experience in the early modern and modern periods."
Alan Christy, the translator of Amino Yoshihiko's Rethinking Japanese History, was interviewed by Carla Nappi at New Books in History. Alan talks about the book, his research, and Professor Amino's life and research. And see the review of Rethinking Japanese Historyin The Japan Times.