Like No Other: Exceptionalism and Nativism in Early Modern Japan

Like No Other: Exceptionalism and Nativism in Early Modern Japan probes the association of the early modern Japanese intellectual institution called Kokugaku with the phenomenon of nativism. Uncovering profound differences that cast serious doubt on this association, Mark McNally argues that what Japanologists viewed as nativistic about Kokugaku were actually more typical of what Americanists call exceptionalism. By severing the link between Kokugaku and nativism, he is able to explore within early modern Japanese history instances that were more genuinely nativistic, such as the upheaval associated with the intercultural encounters with Westerners during the 1850s and 1860s that culminated in the overthrow of Japan's last shogun. He also documents, for the first time in Japanese studies, the ways in which exceptionalism applies to Japanese history; not by focusing on either

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