ISBN-13: 9789004103160 / Niemiecki / Twarda / 1998 / 426 str.
ISBN-13: 9789004103160 / Niemiecki / Twarda / 1998 / 426 str.
The subject of this volume is the historical development of shinto and national thought in premodern and modern Japan. After examining the first instances of shinto-confucian syncretism in the early Edo period, the author investigates the function of shinto as a religious system to legitimize political power and explores how during the late Edo period this culminates in the concept of a specific Japanese national polity(kokutai). Though the main caesurae in the process of modern Japanese history (e.g. Meiji restoration and the end of the Pacific War in 1945) play a dominant role in this context, the author points out that the main historical, religious and ideological continuities are of much greater importance; The ideas and concepts elaborated by shinto thinkers during the Edo period became reality in modern Japan.