The paradigmatic connection between Kokugaku and nativism is misleading and even wrong. In the humanities and the social sciences, nativism either describes anti-immigrant political movements or reactions to colonial domination, and neither of these is relevant to the case of Kokugaku. Instead, ideas and events associated with sonnō-jō’i conform more closely to how the historiographical category of nativism is used outside of Japanese studies. At the same time, one of the salient characteristics of Kokugaku, the assertion of Japanese superiority, is reminiscent of what Americanists call except ... More

The paradigmatic connection between Kokugaku and nativism is misleading and even wrong. In the humanities and the social sciences, nativism either describes anti-immigrant political movements or reactions to colonial domination, and neither of these is relevant to the case of Kokugaku. Instead, ideas and events associated with sonnō-jō’i conform more closely to how the historiographical category of nativism is used outside of Japanese studies. At the same time, one of the salient characteristics of Kokugaku, the assertion of Japanese superiority, is reminiscent of what Americanists call exceptionalism, a concept that Japanologists heretofore have not applied to early modern Japan. Rather than focus on Kokugaku, thereby reinforcing the ideological connection between Kokugaku and the modern nation-state of Japan, which itself is inherently an exceptionalist connection, Like No Other: Exceptionalism and Nativism in Early Modern Japan focuses on the role of Confucianism in the development of exceptionalism during the early modern era. Even though the histories of early modern Japanese nativism and exceptionalism are distinct, they do overlap with one another during the 1850s and 1860s, indicating a connection between the two that Japanese history shares with the histories of other cultures and societies, including that of the United States.