ASIA 315 Lecture 2: ASIA 315 002 Jan. 5th, 2017
Document Summary
A record of the past, of course, but much more. Stories about origins, great ancestors, gifts of civilization and culture, epochal events. What problems are often associated with story-telling history? (different power arrangements) Intellectual history (history of ideas, discourse; how do society and ideas shape each other; what is legitimacy of ideas) History of science (european science moves quickly into japan) Not to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past! (we won"t stop doing that no matter what) History provides for the construction of identity and adds meaning to life. So let"s begin to apply this to japan with a quotation from the textbook. Japan is 85% mountains (not suitable for agriculture) Hokkaido and okinawa were semi-foreign during the time period we are studying. Japan in asia: people were coming through korea, some others island hopped from taiwan, apparently you can hop from taiwan to japan without ever losing sight of land, south china.
