Professor Louis Cullen

Summary

It is a study of Japanese policy, administrative changes in response to emerging 外圧 or foreign pressure、and analysis of the archival sources both as to their nature and extent. T wo stages of this study have already been completed, concerning the extent to which Japanese officials employed statistical concepts in their administrative work. A further stage, the Resanofu or Russian embassy of 1804 is currenty being studied: this was a major event in the dip;omatic history of Japan, and has relatively rich sources. It will be followed by an analysis of the administrative and arhival issues raised in the huge Tsuko Ichiran, compiled in the 1850s , ss a record of Japan's past foreign g relations. to brief Japanese officials who now knew that a foreign challenge was imminent. Population sources were the subject of a paper published in Japan Review in 2006; a further paper is at the moment with referees on the subject of statistics of trade. The sources for statistics have the same characteristic as surviving records of decision making and negotiation. Both administrative documents and statistics of population and trade survive exclusively in copies, often themselves incomplete or summary, and in many cases quite literally copies of copies. Population figures were little used by the shogunal authorities Change began in earnest from 1858 when trade figures after the opening of the ports in 1859 began to become systematic, and when administrative records began to be retained in the original, rather than copied into manusript books on individual topics. The Foreign ministry led the way, and other ministries adopted similar procedures in the decade from 1868.

Funding Agency

part funded by Hosei Univeristy and Osaka Sangyo Univ, facilitated by regular visiting status Kyoto

Project Type

archival oriented, extensive photocopying and microfilming of sources