VII. THE MILITARY REGIME; THE TAIRA AND THE MINAMOTO. THE SHOGUNATE OF KAMAKURA 156 VIII. THE WELDING OF THE NATION. THE POLITICAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE COUNTRY 194 IX. END OF MEDIEVAL JAPAN 221 X. THE TRANSITION FROM MEDIEVAL TO MODERN JAPAN 252 XI. THE TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE,--ITS POLITICAL REGIME 282 XII. TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE,--CULTURE AND SOCIETY 315 XIII. THE RESTORATION OF THE MEIDJI 355 XIV. EPILOGUE 382 INDEX 399 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF JAPAN AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF JAPAN CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The history of Japan may be useful to foreigners in several different ways. If we do not take into account the serviceableness of detached historical data or groups of data, that is to say, when we exclude those cases where the historical data of Japan are studied not for the sake of understanding Japan herself, but in behalf of some other scientific purposes, then it can be said that Japanese history will serve foreigners in two principal and distinct ways. Firstly, it will interest them as the history of one special nation among many in the world. Secondly, it may be useful to historical study in general, seeing that it can be regarded as constituting in itself a microcosm of miniature of the history of the world manifested in that of a small nation. The former point is that which attracts most foreigners by the strength of novelty, while the latter will be none the less suggestive to comprehensive and reflective historians. Both points need some explanations. Let me begin with the first.