In this fascinating journey across centuries, Amino Yoshihiko, the premier historian of medieval Japan, invites us to rethink everything we thought we knew about Japanese history. From reconsidering the roles of outcastes and outlaws, to the provenance of "Japan (Nihon)," to the very meaning of writing, Amino offers a powerful critique of the conventional wisdom about Japan's past. Instead of depicting Japan as an isolated island country full of immobile peasants dominated by swaggering warriors and an unbroken line of sacred emperors, he unveils a dynamic history of an archipelago driven by the competition to control trade and movement, in which warlords and aristocrats share the main stage with pirates, courtesans, beggars, and dancing monks.

Written for a nonspecialist audience and standing on a foundation of fifty years of research in a vast and eclectic range of primary sources, Rethinking Japanese History introduces the English reader to one of Japan's most original and provocative historians. Since the 1970s, Amino has inspired readers with his view of Japanese history "from the sea," in which the power politics of the samurai class were contrasted with the countervailing authorities of religious institutions, artisanal groups, and "lords of the sea" who enabled the movement of people and goods from the Asian continent to every harbor and village of Japan. In his portraits of an archaic and medieval past permeated with "places of freedom" and a grand struggle between ideologies of trade and agriculture, Amino challenged his contemporaries to reconsider not only their understanding of Japan's past, but also its present and future.

Rethinking Japanese History calls on us to contemplate seriously the meaning of the deep past in our present day. By challenging the reader to reexamine our presumptions of the past, Amino offers us a chance to reimagine the present.

網野善彥（1928-2004）

出生於日本山梨縣。畢業於東京大學文學部史學科。歷任名古屋大學助教授、神奈川大學短期大學教授、神奈川大學特任教授。為歷史學家。專攻日本中世史（鎌倉時代到室町時代，十二世紀末~十六世紀末）、日本海民史。網野輕視既存的歷史學，在戰後充滿刻板印象的保守主義和進步史觀橫行之時，提倡「網野史學」的新史觀，專門研究在山林、野外、河川、海邊生活的平民百姓，具有洞察力，能生動描述無名之人的生活，作品深具魅力。可以說日本中世史的偉大和有趣，都是因為有網野善彥這位中世紀史學家存在的關係。著作有：《蒙古襲來》、《日本中世的非農業民和天皇》、《無緣．公界．樂》、《異形的王權》、《日本社會的歷史》、《「日本」是指？》等書。

譯者簡介

堯嘉寧

台灣大學法律學碩士，英國倫敦大學亞非學院社會人類學碩士，日本北海道大學法學科交換留學生，研究主題為台灣人民在歷史中的紛爭解決型態與認同意識；發表論文曾獲民間司法改革基金會獎助，多次擔任國際研討會的論文翻譯或口譯，在新加坡擔任專職譯者兩年，現職為英∕日翻譯，已出版之譯作有《新日本近代法論》（五南出版社），也同時參與非營利組織的社福工作，並在原鄉投入兒童課輔。