Nitobe Inazo
- Born: 1862
- Died: 1933
- Japanese: 新渡戸稲造 (Nitobe Inazou)
Nitobe Inazô was a Meiji period writer, perhaps best known for his book Bushido: the Soul of Japan, which remains one of the chief sources for much of the modern misconceptions about the samurai. Nitobe was also an avid writer on colonization and colonialism, particularly on Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan.
Bushidô was published in 1900.
In 1908, Nitobe was named the first chair of colonial studies at the University of Tokyo. A series of lectures he gave on the subject in 1916-1917 have been described as having "constituted the first systematic study of the subject in Japan."[1] His views on the subject included the idea that "lesser" "inferior" races could be uplifted, civilized, through assimilation into the "superior" culture - that is, Japanese culture, values, attitudes - but only gradually over a very long period of time, and relative to the degree of cultural difference between the two to begin with. Thus, he advocated that Koreans might be able to be assimilated relatively quickly, but that it could take as long as 800 years of colonial rule for the Taiwanese to be guided into becoming fully civilized, modern, people.[2]
Selected Works
- Bushidô (1900)
- Shokumin seisaku kôgi oyobi ronbunshû ("Collected Lectures and Essays on Colonial Policy")
References
- ↑ Mark Peattie, "Japanese Attitudes toward Colonialism, 1895-1945," in Peattie and Ramon Myers (eds.), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, Princeton University Press (1984), 86.
- ↑ Peattie, 95, 99.
