Kokugaku in Meiji-period Japan offers a new perspective on scholarly networks and the foundations of modern Japan. Utilizing never explored original sources and with a unique focus on the persons involved, Michael Wachutka elucidates how kokugaku as a cornucopia of traditional knowledge played an important role in raising a new generation of truly national citizens. Commonly perceived as a purely premodern Edo-period phenomenon, 'national learning' counterbalanced an overly Westernization of society in the process of nation building and identity formation. In addition to kokugaku...