Watanabe wrote his “History of Japanese Political Thought” for the “general reader,” not for the specialist. Much of the book is based on the courses he taught at the University of Tokyo (p. 476), where for many years he occupied the chair of Japanese political thought. Fortunately, this does not turn the book into a textbook, let alone into the comprehensive and boring variety that Watanabe himself says he wanted to avoid writing (p. 474). It is, on the contrary, an intelligent, witty, informative, original, even authoritative overview of the history of Japanese political thought. The bulk of the book treats the Edo Period, but two final chapters on Fukuzawa Yukichi and Nakae Chōmin carry the story forward into the Meiji Period. In its 470 pages, the book gives an account of all the important issues and of many of the major figures.

Watanabe successfully avoids the zushiki, the “scheme” of universal historical development that has been de rigueur ever since his predecessor Maruyama Masao's Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū. Watanabe's book is not based on philosophical assumptions and historiographical theories; it is, if anything, a consistent attempt to understand history in terms of the psychology of the actors. Watanabe tries to make you feel what they experienced and explains their thought as a function of these experiences. Take, for instance, the much-criticized profligacy of Ogyū Sorai's followers. In a psychological argument Watanabe links it to their feeling of frustration: “Since they did not have a country to run, what else could they do but drink and write poetry?” Orthodox Confucians did not share this frustration; they still had the option of “cultivating their persons,” but this had no place in Sorai's scheme of things (p. 201).

As the book is intended for a general readership, Watanabe disregards decades of scholarly discussion and just presents his own opinion. Simple instances are his decision to refer to the bakufu consistently as “kōgi,” or his abrupt declaration that, of course the Japanese knew they were Japanese (pp. 2–3), thus circumventing lengthy debates about nationhood and national identity. In his exposition of Itō Jinsai's thought (Chapter 7), he does not distinguish between Jinsai and Tōgai, claiming that, as Tōgai edited all of his father's texts, it is impossible to distinguish between the two (pp. 137–38). Sorai is classified as “anti-modernity” (han-kindai) (Chapter 9), which goes against all received wisdom but is, of course, true. Other things the specialists may enjoy are the ingenious way in which Watanabe connects Sorai, Daini, and Kokugaku (Chapters 10, 13), his brilliant essays on Andō Shōeki (Chapter 11) and on that “amazing intellect” (odorokubeki chisei [p. 277]) Kaiho Seiryō (Chapter 14), his treatment of Yamagata Daini (Chapter 10, §3), or the tribute he pays to Aleni's Zhifang waiji as the medium that introduced Japan's intellectuals to the west (Chapter 17, §4).

At first sight, the chapters of the book read like separate essays. However, to quote Confucius, there is “one thread running through all,” which is the question, what previous intellectual developments explain that a few years after the appearance of the American ships in Edo Bay the Tokugawa regime had lost all intellectual credibility, and new philosophical, political, and social paradigms could be imported without substantial opposition (p. 4). Not all chapters bear directly to this main theme, but most do.

One strand of the argument hinges on Confucianism, which is introduced in its original Chinese shape in Chapter 1 (where Watanabe makes the important remark that Confucianism was not an ideology that taught the people to be loyal and patriotic, but “a teaching that the rulers should study and believe” [p. 23].) In Chapter 4 he describes the relation of Confucianism with the bakufu and the warriors in general as a gradual process of permeation, very much dependent on the interest of individual shogun, of whom he mentions Ieyasu and Tsunayoshi (pp. 90–91).Footnote ¹

In the following pages, he emphasizes the, initially, small numbers and low social prestige of the Confucian scholars or jusha (pp. 93–97).Footnote ² The reason for their low standing was that Confucianism had to function in a society that was fundamentally uncongenial. Power was in the hands of the bushi, and they based their authority on force and the show of force (ikō) (pp. 54–58). Watanabe denies that the bakufu attempted to enlist Confucianism as its ideology; neither “maintaining the peace” (tenka taihei), nor “benevolent rule” (jinsei) could ever become the raison d'être of warrior rule, he argues, for they implied the self-negation of the warrior class (p. 89).Footnote ³ Confucian rhetoric of “benevolent government” was accepted to the extent that it was compatible with the interests of the warriors (pp. 106–09). Confucianism had its attractions, but it also was “dangerous thought.” Potentially, it could undermine the baku-han state (Chapter 5).

In the hands of the Confucian scholars Jinsai and Tōgai, Arai Hakuseki, Ogyū Sorai and disciples, and Yamagata Daini, Confucianism became more overtly political and anti-bakufu. Although outside critics (Andō Shōeki, Kaiho Seiryō, the Kokugakusha) made some dents in its credibility, it is clear from Watanabe's narration that by the Bakumatsu Period Confucianism had become the common frame of reference of all responsible politicians. The discussion about opening the country was uniformly couched in Confucian terms (Chapters 18, 19). A few decades later, notwithstanding his immersion in French radicalism, Nakae Chōmin still consciously thought in Zhu Xi's categories of ri (logic, truth) and rigi (universal justice), and maintained that western philosophy did not conflict with Confucianism. Evidently, the propagation of the Confucian teachings had been a success.

A second strand in Watanabe's argument, next to Confucianism, is the importance of social structures. He subscribes to the analysis that Tokugawa society consisted of ie, which were not, as Confucianism prescribed, consanguineous units, but functional ones. Each ie had to do whatever it took to fulfil its function in society, and to preserve and improve its position (Chapter 4). Within this context, Watanabe pays much attention to “The Mystery of Sex” (Chapter 16) and to women, for Japanese women enjoyed much more freedom than their sisters in China. Though Watanabe warns that “the abundance of sex did not mean the equality of man and woman or the ‘liberation’ of women” (p. 324), he does point out that a relation existed between the ease of divorce, the ease with which women could remarry, the lack of emphasis on female chastity, and the fact that the ie was not a true agnatic family. Most important for the prosperity of the ie was that man and wife “got along”. As the moralists felt that it was especially incumbent on women to try and keep their husbands, the key female virtue was grace and charm (aikyō), not chastity as in China or Europe (p. 329).

This strand of the argument culminates in Fukuzawa Yukichi who, as a result of his youthful frustrations, condemned the ie system as virtual imprisonment (everyone shut up in his own little box by the accident of his birth, without any prospect of ever getting out) and in an article of 1875 explained the success of the Meiji Restoration by the appeal of “freedom”: freedom from the fetters of heredity, and freedom to realize one's own talents and aspirations (p. 398). Fukuzawa also obliged with strong praise of the modern nuclear family – a haven of love in a competitive world (pp. 442–43).

What remains is the perennial question, to what extent “thought” and “intellectuals” caused the developments. The dilemma shows itself in a nutshell when we compare Watanabe's conclusion that “At least in one respect, Tokugawa Japan opened itself to the ‘Modern West,’ having freely decided to do so as the result of an examination of universal principles” (p. 377) with what he writes a few pages further on, namely, that what made the difference with earlier approaches of European powers such as the embassies of Laxman (1791) and Rezanow (1804), the Morisson Incident (1837–1839), or the letter of King William II of the Netherlands (1844) (discussed in pp. 363–70), was not the intrinsic quality of Perry's case, but his aggressive approach and his guns (p. 385).

Watanabe gives a subtle analysis of the events in the Bakumatsu Period (pp. 388–402), showing the intricate interplay of political, ideological, and psychological factors. The bakufu's inability to call Perry's bluff undermined its authority (go-ikō) and gave plausibility to the ideological rallying cry “Expel the barbarians” (jōi). The improved status of the imperial court meant that whoever could claim that he represented the emperor need not fear any ideological opposition. Once the power structure began to crumble, both the rulers and the ruled lost their bearings. All routines were questioned, and the government suddenly found that it had to organize support for every measure it proposed. Broad consultation of the daimyō seemed a practicable way to rally this support. It helped that, in Confucian ideology, asking advice from one's subalterns and “listening to the people” was highly positively regarded. In practice, however, it turned out to be dangerous, because it gave the activists (shishi) an opportunity to talk back to their superiors. What the activists really wanted – here Watanabe falls back on Fukuzawa's analysis quoted earlier – was “freedom.” The opening of Japan was, as Watanabe justly claims (p. 382), a major event in world history, and its analysis is one of the highpoints of the book.