Conversation

"...there is compelling evidence that the #sakoku phenomenon has been exaggerated historically [and can be] ascribed to a form of Eurocentrism... in which... non-Western societies are viewed primarily from a Western perspective"
"Focusing on the religious dimension... implies that Europeans were the most important aspect of #Japan’s external world at this time [but] relations with neighbouring Korea and China were of far more concern to the Tokugawa shogunate"
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767724.2024.2361028#d1e197
#history