The Society for Japanese Studies

State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan by Thomas Donald Conlan
Review by: Harold Bolitho
Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 470-473
Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies
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470 Journal of Japanese Studies

31:2(2005)

State ofWar: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan. By Thomas

Donald Conlan. Center for Japanese Studies, University ofMichigan,
Ann Arbor, 2003. xviii, 281 pages. $65.00, cloth; $24.00, paper.

Reviewed by
Harold
Bolitho
Harvard University
English-language scholarship, as ifby unspoken agreement, has tradition
ally kept much of the history of Japan's complicated fourteenth century at
arm's length.True, Andrew Goble's study ofGo-Daigo's abortive attempt to

revive imperial authority in his Kenmu: Go-Daigo 'sRevolution dealt with

one crucial segment of it, the years from 1321 to 1335. But the long after
math, the 50-odd years duringwhich two imperial courts butted heads in the

pursuit of legitimacy, has been almost totally untouched. Not since 1971,
when Paul Varley devoted a chapter to theNanbokuch? inhis Imperial Res
toration inMedieval Japan, has anyone dared set foot in thatparticular briar
patch. Instead, over the intervening years, survey histories have done little
more than give itan oblique and apprehensive glance before racing on, with
evident relief, to themore manageable chaos of theMuromachi bakufu. To
cite just one example, the index toMedieval Japan, the thirdvolume of The
Cambridge History of Japan, directs the reader to just threeNanbokuch?
references,

each

one

of them

cursory.

This observation is notmeant to be taken as criticism. One can readily

understand why historians, hoping thatreaders will not notice the omission,
have tiptoed unobtrusively around the fringes of such a muddle. Civil wars,
even when fought by two well-defined parties with sharply contrasting
aims,

still resist

comfortable

explanation,

especially

when,

on

the ground,

opportunities to settle private scores sometimes blur more loftymotives.

Imagine then the difficulties of tracking events in Japan over the years be
tween 1336 and 1392, as Thomas Conlan has done in thebook under review.
In theNanbokuch? period, instead of two well-defined parties espousing
radically differentaims, therewas amyriad of actors, sometimes forming al
liances of convenience, at others breaking them just as easily. Despite the
rhetoric, all of the disorder was dictated by one principle, and one principle
that themost basic: down and dirtypragmatism. The patternwas
only?and
set by one of the chief instigators of the turmoil,Ashikaga Takauji, who, on
the evidence, seems tohave deserved Kitabatake Chikafusa's condemnation
as "a

thief without

merit

or virtue."

This,

after all, was

a warrior

who,

after

pledging loyalty to theH?j? early in 1333, within just a few months had
changed sides to supportGo-Daigo, only to turnagainst him toward the end
of 1335. Then, later, in 1351, still exclusively preoccupied with his own am
bitions, Takauji suddenly began tomake overtures to that same Southern

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471

Review Section

Court he had spent years pursuing through theYoshino mountains. If a lead

ing actor could behave like this, thenwe have no right to expect themulti
tude of bit players to conduct themselves otherwise. To be sure, the element
of self-interest can be detected through earlier periods of Japan's history,
where warriors seem to have been sporadically at war with each other for
immediate benefits, but never to such an extent as in theyears of theNorth
ern and

Southern

Courts.

Itwas not that therewere no well-defined principles to choose between

in this long, drawn-out struggle.There were two, one supporting the legiti

macy of theNorthern Court, the Jimy?inbranch of the imperial line, and the
other, theDaikakuji branch, represented by the Southern Court. Itwould be
difficult to imagine any issue quite so clear cut. The troublewas thatnone
of those involved in the fighting seemed to care verymuch for either side,
rather cherishing agendas of their own, and switching sides from time to
time, back and forth,as those agendas dictated. Exceptions are very thinon

the ground, with perhaps themost notable being Kitabatake Chikafusa, the
courtierwho gave his life, and thatof his eldest son, barely 20 years old, in
the service of what proved to be a lost cause.
It is grounds for satisfaction, then, to pick up Thomas Conlan's study
of this dizzyingly convoluted period, for it is by far themost thorough
and detailed analysis of thewarfare of theNanbokuch? era available inEng

lish. Conlan moves us well beyond the standard sources?the Taiheiki,

take advantage of the explosion
Baish?ron, Meitokuki, and Entairyaku?to
of local histories and document collections thatwere among themany wel
come by-products of Japan's late twentieth-centuryprosperity. There was
much more to the years 1336-92 thanwhat transpired in theKinai, and
these

records

allow

him

to give

a sense

of the anarchy

into which

the entire

archipelago had been plunged. Then, too,while warfare may have been at
itsmost intense during the 1330s and the early 1350s, as the author ac
knowledges, the skirmishing thatwent on and on and on was in itsown way
just as significant. Equally, therewere many more figures involved than
Takauji, the initiator,at one end and Yoshimitsu, the conciliator, at theother,

and we are introduced to some of them here, beginning with Nomoto To

moyuki and his son Tsuruj?maru, minor characters in service of theKuma

gai house, whose existence would otherwise have passed unnoticed. The re
sult is a far deeper, richer, and more complex picture of Japan during the
period of theNorthern and Southern Courts.
In a series of illuminating chapters, Conlan sets out to see what
changes?military,

economic,

social,

religious,

and

legal?grew

out of the

Nanbokuch? experience. He discerns a movement toward regional forces

under the command of shugo, whose power grew once the hanzei system of
1352 allowed them to spend more funds on their armies. In the process,
hereditary privilege came to be trumpedby ability and wealth, with success

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472 Journal of Japanese Studies

accruing
religion

to those who
seems

to have

could

promise

been

transformed,

31:2(2005)

their followers
moving

Even
rewards.
greater
a
relation
personal

from

ship with gods and buddhas to something mediated through an Ashikaga

prince with Erastian (that is, state control of religious affairs) pretensions.
Most significant, though, and casting a very long shadow, was the destruc

tion of the concept of law and order buttressed by a strong central govern
ment and a consequent legitimation of private violence. Along with the de
velopment of these main themes, Conlan offers a wealth of fascinating

incidentalmaterial?dealing
with wounds and demands for compensation,
with thenature of casualties, with the crucial importance of rewards for ser
vice, with the franklymercurial nature of loyalty,with the franticpolythe
ism of thebattlefield. This is not thebehavior associated with the samurai of
our children's fantasies, but it sounds exactly right.

Overall, itmay be that the general message of Conlan's book, despite its
welcome profusion of detail, will surprise nobody. Earlier historians, gazing
from a respectful distance, and certainly without recourse to the detailed
analysis presented in thiswork, nevertheless seem to have been able to un
derstand what was going on. The self-serving behavior of the participants
Conlan indicates (deemed "crassly opportunistic" more than40 years ago in
JohnK. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert Craig's East Asia: The
Great Tradition) was obvious to, among others, Conrad Schirokauer, who
described men fightingwith "no common program or interests" and pointed
to warriors

who

made

sure

that whatever

the outcome,

their families

"would

be on thewinning side by having branches fight on both sides of the con

flict." lOn thematter of the changes brought about by 50-odd years of war
fare, JohnHall had no difficulty in recognizing what Conlan substantiates,
the emergence

of "a new

balance

of political

power,

inclining

ever more

to

ward localism and feudal authority."2

Of course, despite the great contribution the author has made to our
knowledge of the fourteenth century,one always wants to know more. One

might, for example, have wished for a littlemore information to help iden
tifymany of thefigureswho come and go in these pages, most of themmen
tioned only once, but thenon the other hand these passing references give a
sense?as
the earlier tradition,which concentrated on Takauji, Kusunoki

Masashige et al., did not?of an entire country entangled in half a century

of turmoil.Ultimately, too, outside the information offered in some appen
dices toConlan's chapter two,which deal with battles in 1336 and 1354, it
is not easy towork out who was fightingwhom, where, and when. But con
sider the problem. A definitive account, listing not just major battles, but
1. Conrad Schirokauer, A Brief History of Japanese Civilization
Brace, Jovanovich, 1993), p. 98.
2. JohnWhitney Hall, Japan from Prehistory toModern Times
Press, 1970), p. 105.

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(New York: Harcourt,

(New York: Delacorte

473

Review Section

also skirmishes, and identifying the participants on both sides, not forget
ting their former and current alliances and theirpresent objectives, would,
even if such a thingwere feasible, only serve at best to confuse the reader

and at worst nudge him into boredom. It is to Conlan's credit that he has
emerged from the ruckwith as much solid information as he has, distilling
forusmore than enough meaning from theperiod to chew over. If in the end,
when we thinkof thewarfare of theNanbokuch? period, we are inclined to
fall back on the elegant, if inscrutable, summary offered, in rather lordly
fashion, by Sir George Sansom?"the winds of fortuneblew to and fro, the
tide of conflict ebbed and flowed"3-it is not Conlan's fault.He has restored
to us a significant segment of the Japanese historical experience, and for that
our

he deserves

thanks.

Pre-industrial Korea and Japan inEnvironmental Perspective. By Conrad

Totman. Brill, Leiden, 2004. xxi, 226 pages. 63.00.
Reviewed by
Dudden

Alexis

Connecticut College
Conrad Totman's recent book, Pre-industrial Korea and Japan inEnviron
mental Perspective, examines Korean and Japanese history leading up to
1800 in the context of the countries' similar natural surroundings. Building
on his demonstrated interest in the relationship between Japanese social de
velopment and itsecological environs (Green Archipelago [1989] and Early
Modern Japan [1993]), Totman breaks new ground here by considering Ko
rean

and

Japanese

experiences

on a shared

plane.

Inmany respects, it is a wonderful book. Totman tells the familiar, long

chronological dur?e from preagricultural society to the verge of industrial
ization with numerous fascinating twists and unfamiliar and suggestive in
sights.He focuses particularly on the interplaybetween the region's natural
the human quest to control
world?atmospheric,
geologic, biologic?and
its forces for survival and political and economic gain. At the same time,

Totman is also concerned with placing Korean and Japanese history in the
larger, global developmental context, which is particularly useful given
the lack of attention these countries receive inmost so-called world or "big"

histories.
The firstchart in the book, "Demographic Trends" (p. 4), illustratively
3. George

Sansom, A Brief History of Japan, 1334-1615

(London: Cresset Press,

p. 60.

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1961),