J. Kurashige
jiriki kyūsai (“self- redress”) during the Era of the Country at War. Ikegami contends, however,
that this rugged individualism faced stern opposition from the daimyō, who attempted to “tame”
their retainers through laws such as the kenka ryōseibai—a law that punished both parties equally
during any conflict.^36 It bears mentioning however that the same principle was advanced by the
Kamakura and Muromachi regimes as well, and thus was not so much something new as a reaf-
firmation of an older tradition.^37
Somewhat similarly, Herman Ooms offers the most significant survey to date of sixteenth-
century ideological developments as prelude to his 1985 study of early Tokugawa period
intellectual discourse. Seeking to dismantle the notion, prevailing at the time he wrote, that
the shogunate imposed a Neo- Confucian orthodoxy of thought during the early decades of
the seventeenth century, Ooms revealed the prevalence of numerous competing ideologies
during the waning years of the Age of the Country at War and into the beginning of the Edo
period.^38
It is unfortunate that, as Shimizu Katsuyuki lamented in Yominaosu, academic historians have
shown so little recent interest in samurai intellectual history, leaving the field instead largely to
amateur aficionados.^39 In light of the rising popularity of anime, and the accompanying interest in
samurai culture, one cannot but hope that a new generation of scholars will wrest this field back
from popular historians, who are more interested in retelling myth than in ascertaining fact.
Tools of the trade
One complication for foreigners attempting to read Japanese scholarship is its heavy use of spe-
cialist jargon. The definitions of many historical terms still remain topics of debate in Japanese
scholarship.^40 How are we to come to grips with such words and their associated theoretical para-
digms (-ron in Japanese)? Fortunately, a number of reference works are available to navigate this
verbal maze, represented by Nihon chūsei-shi kenkyū jiten and Nihon kinsei- shi kenkyū jiten.^41
Although slightly dated, these dictionaries define terms and scholarly paradigms, and aim to
reconcile differing viewpoints in the field. Even more usefully, they also list classic works that
analyze these key concepts.
In addition to jargon, another issue facing historians reading Japanese scholarship is the lack of
contextualization surrounding important individuals or locations. Although webpages profiling
such persons or places proliferate, their reliability remains problematic. Researchers are still
better served by dictionaries covering both national- level and provincial figures. The Sengoku
jinmei jiten is arguably the most useful of the generalized texts. On the other hand, an extensive
selection of regionally focused volumes is available as well. While such works tend to vary in
quality, many are quite comprehensive, and often go beyond the scope of the title. Shimoyama
Haruhisa’s Go- Hōjō-shi kashindan jinmei jiten, for example, discusses many members of the Go-
Hōjō family, in addition to the retainers (kashindan) of the daimyō promised by the title.^42
Historians should also not ignore the value of encyclopedias of regional place names. Such
works usually list the primary source documents in which names appear, and also often offer
much needed background by chronicling events in nearby locales during the same era. Kadokawa’s
Nihon chimei dai- jiten is one such series.^43
This wealth of secondary material obviously makes research easier, but at the end of the day
exploration of primary sources represents the core of historical research. The hunt for such
materials has also been facilitated by the compellation of documents centered on the themes of
house and location. For those who research the Go- Hōjō, Imagawa, or Takeda houses, for
example, the Sengoku ibun series provides near- complete collections of materials written both by
daimyō and their retainers.^44 The Sengoku ibun also includes region- centered collections for the