The Dai Nihonshi Phenomenon: Confucianism, Collaboration, and Tradition in Early Modern Japanese History Writing (1657-1906)

Some of the most controversial figures of early modern Japanese history are the members of the Mito school, a scholarly community outside the main intellectual hubs of their time, who created the Dai Nihonshi (The History of Great Japan, 1657-1906), the most monumental history writing product in Japan which also (surprisingly) consistently follows the structure and style of Chinese dynastic histories. The Mito school appears in the limited existing scholarship in two distinct manners: either in the context of their historiographical engagements initiated by Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1627-1700), the second daimyo of the Mito domain in the early Tokugawa period, or, more frequently, in relation to their nationalistic engagements in the political history of the late Tokugawa period in the 19th century. Despite the clear complexities of Mito’s role in Japanese history, the controversies of their story has hitherto attracted very limited scholarly attention. Therefore, this dissertation aims to connect the disparate elements of Mito’s contradictory image by analyzing the story of the compilation of the Dai Nihonshi, the creation of which covered nearly the entire Tokugawa and the majority of the Meiji period as well, through a procedural approach, thus reinforcing the importance of continuity.
Using a hybrid methodology, which combines qualitative text-based close reading with the quantitative visualizations and network analysis of the data of 153 Mito compilers, the dissertation aims to tackle the following overarching questions: how did an initially open-minded and inclusive “imagined community” subsequently become associated with nationalism and xenophobia? How do we situate Mito’s role and significance in the broader context of Japanese and East Asian history and history writing? And, in a broader sense, what can we learn about the meaning of history and history writing in Japan through the case of Mito?
Using the biographies of the compilers in multiple sources, as well as Fujita Yūkoku’s Shūshi shimatsu (The Story of the Compilation from Beginning to End, 1799), his son’s, Fujita Tōko’s individual essays, and the content of the Dai Nihonshi itself, the dissertation places Mito in the center of attention as a transitional entity between the dominant intellectual waves of the early modern period. Further, the dissertation also uses the large timeframe and the shifting dynamics of the intellectual history of Mito’s historiography as a means to shed light on their openness to Chinese concepts, thus showing the role and significance of foreign elements in the shaping of nationalistic ideas.
In addition, the dissertation contributes to the growing area of digital humanities by providing one of the first consistent applications of digital tools in parallel with close reading to an early modern East Asian historical theme, and it includes the first English translation of a hitherto neglected part of the Dai Nihonshi, the ritual-related essay section, thus giving credit to its importance in the analysis of Mito’s historiography.