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SUMMARY:Japan's Spongy-Middle Revolution - Professor David Howell (Harvard
  University)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260219T170000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260219T190000Z
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/3f70c080-fea5-40fe-a8f4-5dece54a5310/
DESCRIPTION:In 1961\, Thomas C. Smith published a short essay entitled “
 Japan’s Aristocratic Revolution.” In his characteristically clear and 
 economical prose\, he begins\, “There was no democratic revolution in Ja
 pan because none was necessary: the aristocracy itself was revolutionary.
 ” The essay goes on to make an argument now so familiar as to feel self-
 evident: low-ranking samurai carried out the revolution we call the Meiji 
 Restoration without much help from either the peasant masses or the bourge
 oisie. In this talk I will substitute Smith’s “aristocracy” with a l
 ess clearly defined class of actors who inhabited a spongy middle stratum 
 of Tokugawa society: status-straddlers\, some on the lowest fringe of the 
 samurai class and others well-connected commoners. In addition to complica
 ting our understanding of Tokugawa society\, I will propose a way to frame
  the collapse of the early modern order as social history.\nSpeakers:\nPro
 fessor David Howell (Harvard University)
LOCATION:St Antony's College (Pavilion Room\, 4th Floor Gateway Building)\
 , 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/3f70c080-fea5-40fe-a8f4-5dece54a5310/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Japan's Spongy-Middle Revolution - Professor David Howell
  (Harvard University)
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