1st Edition
Soeda and the Making of Modern Japan Power, Religion and Industry in Northern Kyushu
By Ian Neary
Copyright 2025
246 Pages
by
Routledge
246 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Soeda’s story provides insights into the last thousand years of Japanese history. It was the location of a strategically important castle, Ganjakujo, from the twelfth century until its destruction by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587. Ganjakujo controlled access to Mt Hiko which was the most important Shugend. monastic community in Kyushu until its dissolution in the 1870s. Coal mines in Soeda in the... Read more
List of Illustrations, List of Tables, Preface and Acknowledgments, Chapter 1: Introduction and early history, Chapter 2: Mt Hiko, the evolution of a monastic community, Chapter 3: Soeda: Its early modern history, Chapter 4: The modernisation of Soeda, Chapter 5: Coal mining in Soeda, Chapter 6: Soeda in the war years, Chapter 7: Soeda under occupation and after, Chapter 8: Buraku in Soeda, Chapter 9: 'Post-industrial' Soeda 1970-2010,Epilogue Soeda's present and future,List of Mt Hiko's abbots (zasu), Kanji Glossary, Bibliography, Index.
Biography
Ian Neary taught at the universities of Huddersfield, Newcastle and Essex before arriving at Oxford University in 2004. He retired in 2019 and is now an emeritus fellow at the Nissan Institute and St Antony’s College. He has written about Buraku issues, human rights and industrial policy in Japan and published a textbook on Japanese politics (2002, 2nd edition 2018). He lives for part of each year in the town of Soeda, Fukuoka prefecture.
