This is the concluding volume of a three-volume work that culminates the life study of the West''s most distinguished scholar of Japanese history. A straightforward narrative of the development of Japanese civilization to 1867, the three volumes constitute the first large-scale comprehensive history of Japan.
Unlike the renowned Short Cultural History, it is concerned mainly with political and social phenomena and only incidentally touches on religion, literature, and the arts. The treatment is primarily descriptive and factual, but the author offers some pragmatic interpretations and suggests comparisons with the history of other peoples.
A History of Japan: 1615-1867 describes the political and social development of Japan during the two and half centuries of rule by the Tokugawa Shoguns, a period of remarkable development in almost ever aspects of the national life. Under Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun, a system of checks and balances to keep the grea
