Shinto und die Konzeption des japanischen Nationalwesens kokutai: Der religioese Traditionalismus in Neuzeit und Moderne Japans

The subject of this volume is the historical development of shinto national thought in premodern and modern Japan. After examining the first instances of shinto-confucian syncretism in the early Edo period, the author investigates the function of shinto as a religious system to legitmize political power and explores how during the late Edo period this culminates in the concept of a specific Japanese national polity, kokutai . Though the main caesurae in the process of modern Japanese history (for example, Meji restoration and the end of the Pacific War 1945) play a dominant role in this context, the author points out that the main historical, religious and ideological continuities are of much greater importance. Klaus Antoni asserts that the ideas and concepts elaborated by shinto thinkers during the Edo period became reality in modern Japan.