A compelling portrait of the dynasty that blurred the distinctions between samurai, pirates, and merchants in seventeenth-century Japan
In this book, Timothy R. Romans uses a family of Japanese pirates, the Suetsugu, as a lens through which to recast the Tokugawa shogunate as a maritime empire in an arena of inter-imperial competition. The Suetsugu, as a transnational family, are critical to helping us resolve some of the lingering contradictions of and questions about the misunderstood Tokugawa period (1603–1867), a time when Japan was a maritime empire locked in competition with Europe, China, and Korea.
At the heart of this competitive maritime world was the city of Nagasaki, home of the Suetsugu and a haven for pirates, makers of cutthroat backroom deals, and hatchers of plots. The Suetsugu and their ambitions nearly brought all of East Asia to war at the end of the seventeenth century. The family’s demise helps us understand the rise of a relatively peaceful East Asian world order that endured for over two hundred years.
Over the past fifty years, descriptions of Tokugawa rule have ranged from feudal, absolutist, performative, federalist, and Japanocentric to, more recently, ad hoc, pragmatic, and open-ended. The rise of transnational history with its emphasis on the movement and reach of people outside traditional national borders offers exciting opportunities to move this debate forward and reevaluate a critical time in Japanese history.
