Some Observations on the “Seventeenth-Century Crisis” in China and Japan

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Association for Asian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Asian Studies.Fernand Braudel issues this caution in his widely acclaimed work on the Mediterranean world in the late sixteenth century, "When discussing the rise and fall of empires, it is well to [avoid) the temptation to-. . . discover too early signs of greatness in a state which we know will one day be great, or to predict too early the collapse of an empire which we know will one day cease to be" (1975, vol. 2:661). Although Braudel is primarily concerned with the Spanish and Ottoman empires, he probably would not be surprised to learn that students of late Ming history (c. 1580-1644) have tended to keep one eye firmly fixed on 1644, the year the Ming dynasty fell and Manchu rule began in China. For some, at least, the origins of the Ming collapse may be clearly seen in the irresponsible behavior of the Wan-li emperor (r. 1573-1620), in the enormous costs incurred fighting the Japanese in Korea during the 1590s, in the crushing defeat of Ming forces in Liaotung by the Manchus in 1619, or in the "reign of terror" conducted by the eunuch Wei Chung-hsien (1568-1627) in 1625-1626. However, Wei died nearly seventeen years before the first Manchu troops appeared on the streets of Peking, and therefore there must be some doubt as to whether his activities, or these other factors, had much to do with the final demise of the Ming dynasty.In marked contrast to the gloomy picture usually painted of seventeenth-century China, studies of Japan at this time often celebrate such "positive" developments as the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603, the great construction projects of the Keicho (1596-1614) and Genna (1615-1623) periods, the "completion of Tokugawa institutions" during the 1630s and 1640s, and the flowering of urban culture during the Genroku era (1688-1703). It is possible therefore to gain the impression that the first century of Tokugawa rule in Japan was a time of peace, stability, and virtually uninterrupted economic and demographic growth. Recent scholarship (YaWilliam S. Atwell is Associate Professor of History, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.Some of the research on which this article is based was made possible by awards from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science as part of its exchange agreement with the British Academy. The author takes this opportunity to thank them for their generous assistance. None of these organizations, however, assumes any responsibility for the author's conclusions.An earlier version of this article was presented at the 31st Interna...

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“…W.S. Atwell (1986), "Some Observations on the 'Seventeenth Century Crisis' in China and Japan", The Journal of Asian Studies, 45 (2), s. 223 -244. 9 1699'daki Karlofça Antlaşması'yla Osmanlı Devleti'nin gerileme döneminin başladığı iddiası, gerek Batı'da gerekse Türkiye'deki tarih yazımının en çok bilinen, neredeyse gelenekselleşmiş dönemleştirme örneklerinden biridir.…”

Military Mobilization in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century China, Russia, and Mongolia

“…1967) Other scholars have extended the idea of a seventeenthcentury crisis to include the rest of the world, pointing out at least roughly analogous occurrences in China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. (Atwell, 1986;Wakeman, 1986) Although they have discovered parallel developments, the explanations for these parallels remain speculative and inadequate. Some posit a change in the global climate, but evidence of climatic change is lacking for much of the world.…”

“…Only a few bold 'world historians' have speculated on the links integrating global processes during this period. (Atwell 1982(Atwell , 1986(Atwell , 1988Fletcher 1985;Goldstone 1988Goldstone , 1991McNeill 1981;Wakeman 1986) But empirical demonstration of posited parallels is still scarce.…”

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“…An unhealthy dependency on foreign silver has been cited as a key factor in the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. In this view, interruptions in the global production and trade of silver in the mid-17 th century caused devastating disruption to the Chinese economy and left the Ming state unable to resist domestic rebellion and foreign invasion (Atwell 1982(Atwell , 1986(Atwell , 2005Wakeman 1986). Similarly, it has been argued that the drain of silver abroad in the RICHARD VON GLAHN 2 Revista de Historia Económica, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History second quarter of the 19 th century-essentially to pay for opium importstriggered the cataclysmic Opium War of 1839-1842 and led to China's subordination to the European-dominated global capitalist economy (Greenberg 1951;Moulder 1977).…”