Years of Rice and Salt - by Arislyn on 09:18 17 Mar 2003
Okay, I know I should come up with my own questions. However, this was such an intriguing question that I felt like it would be nice to post it here and see what everyone else thought. (Reposted with the original author's permission).
Okay, I know I should come up with my own questions. However, this was such an intriguing question that I felt like it would be nice to post it here and see what everyone else thought. (Reposted with the original author's permission).
| Quote |
I'm currently reading "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson (author of "Red Mars"). Basically it's an alternate history novel that postulates a world where European civilization is wiped out by plague (not just decimated, but totally wiped out) and Chinese and Islamic civilizations grow dominant instead (balanced by civilizations on the Indian subcontinent and a nation of Native American tribes). Anyway, what does this have to do with Sengoku? In the book history progresses along wildly different paths in some respects but in others it is much the same as our world's history. In regards to Japan, mention is made in the book of part of the Sengoku era in Japan. The history of Japan at that point in the book seems the same as ours; Hideyoshi invades Korea and is repulsed, and Tokugawa comes to power and closes the country (leaving the Chinese Emperor contemplating ways of absorbing Japan into the Chinese Empire). Up to that point in the book at least, Japanese history seems to be following events we are familiar with. There isn't much more detail on Japan's situation in Robinson's story than that, but it got me wondering. Would Japanese history in the Sengoku period have unfolded the same way if the European traders and missionaries NOT been present in Japan at the time? Technologically speaking, the use of firearms might have developed differently. Probably the Japanese could have gotten them from the Chinese? Also, would the Kyushu daimyos have agitated against Hideyoshi or Nobunaga as much as they did without the influence of Christianity? My feeling is, although there were Europeans in Japan at the time, their influence and impact, except for the import and sale of firearms and the spread of Christianity, was minimal, and of those two, the introduction of firearms was the more important aspect. So, again, do you think Japan would have developed in the same way even without the presence and influence of Europe in the Sengoku era? original poster - StingerSix at Sengoku Yahoo Group |