Prisoners from Nambu : Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy

On July 29, 1643, ten crew members of the Dutch yacht __Breskens__ were lured ashore at Nambu in northern Japan. Once out of view of their ship, the men were bound and taken to the shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, in Edo, where they remained imprisoned for four months. Later the Japanese government forced the Dutch East India Company representative in Nagasaki to acknowledge that the sailors had in fact been saved from shipwreck and that official recognition of the rescue (i.e., a formal visit from a Dutch ambassador) was in order. __Prisoners from Nambu__ provides a lively, engrossing narrative of this relatively obscure incident, while casting light on the history of the period as a whole. Expertly constructing his tale from primary sources, the author examines relations between the Dutch East India Company and the shogunal government immediately following the promulgation of the "seclusion laws" __(sakokurei)__ and anti-Christian campaigns.

Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine is the first book in English on the history of evolutionary theory in Japan. Bringing to life more than a century of ideas, G. Clinton Godart examines how and why Japanese intellectuals, religious thinkers of different faiths, philosophers, biologists, journalists, activists, and ideologues engaged with evolutionary theory and religion. 

Evolutionary theory was controversial and never passively accepted in Japan: It took a hundred years of appropriating, translating, thinking, and debating to reconsider the natural world and the relation between nature, science, and the sacred in light of evolutionary theory. Since its introduction in the nineteenth century, Japanese intellectuals - including Buddhist, Shinto, Confucian, and Christian thinkers - in their own ways and often with opposing agendas, struggled to formulate a meaningful worldview after Darwin. In the decades that followed, as the Japanese redefined their relation to nature and built a modern nation-state, the debates on evolutionary theory intensified and state ideologues grew increasingly hostile toward its principles. Throughout the religious reception of evolution was dominated by a long-held fear of the idea of nature and society as cold and materialist, governed by the mindless "struggle for survival." This aversion endeavored many religious thinkers, philosophers, and biologists to find goodness and the divine within nature and evolution. It was this drive, argues Godart, that shaped much of Japan’s modern intellectual history and changed Japanese understandings of nature, society, and the sacred.

Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine will contribute significantly to two of the most debated topics in the history of evolutionary theory: religion and the political legacy of evolution. It will, therefore, appeal to the broad audience interested in Darwin studies as well as students and scholars of Japanese intellectual history, religion, and philosophy.

-DE STERS- Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Titles and Names Introduction The Prisoners from Nambu Chapter 1. Flying Dutchmen Chapter 2. Ganji Garame Chapter 3. Incompatible Jailbirds Chapter 4. A Strict Investigation Chapter 5. Unwitting Witnesses Chapter 6. A Magnanimous Gesture Chapter 7. Elserack’s Promise Chapter 8. A Memorable Embassy Conclusion: Was Japan Isolated during the Edo Period? Notes Bibliography Index Publisher Fact Sheet Using the account of an obscure incident between the Japanese government & members of a Dutch yacht, the author examines relations between the Dutch East India Company & the shogunal government immediately following the promulgation of the "seclusion laws" & anti-Christian campaigns