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• W2065952307 abstract "Reviewed by: Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age Bruce L. Batten Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. By William Wayne Farris. University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. x + 372 pages. Hardcover $48.00. William Wayne Farris began his academic career just over two decades ago with an innovative book on the demography of Nara-early Heian Japan (Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645-900; Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1985). After forays into military history (Heavenly Warriors; Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992) and historical archaeology (Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures; University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), Farris has returned to demography with a vengeance. In addition to the volume presently under review, he is also the author of The Population of Ancient Japan, a monograph listed in the bibliography as forthcoming from the University of Michigan. In Population, Disease, and Land, Farris argued that the period from 645 through 900 was one of demographic stasis caused by economic backwardness and the effects of epidemic disease. He hinted, however, that this vicious cycle was overcome in the late Heian and Kamakura periods as diseases became endemic and Japan underwent a medieval agricultural revolution. Japan's Medieval Population, which covers the period 1150-1600, revises some of these earlier views, in effect postponing the onset of the medieval revolution (both economic and demographic) by up to a couple of centuries. Presumably Farris's forthcoming book on ancient Japan also supports this new analysis. In Japan's Medieval Population, Farris divides Japan's medieval centuries into three subperiods, 1150-1280, 1280-1450, and 1450-1600, devoting a pair of chapters to each: the first on population and mortality factors such as disease, famine, and war, and the second on indirect variables such as agriculture and settlement; industry, commerce, and urbanization; family life; and material well-being. To briefly summarize, he finds that during the first subperiod, 1150-1280, Japan's population remained in stasis (at around 6 million people) because positive developments such as increased immunity to disease were balanced by negative ones such as increased famine and war (chapters 1 and 2). The second subperiod, 1280-1450, saw the beginnings of rapid population growth, particularly during what the author calls the Muromachi Optimum of 1370-1450. Growth resulted from reduced losses from famine (but not war) combined with the operation of various background factors (improvements in agriculture, social organization, material well-being, and so on) that otherwise decreased mortality or increased fertility (chapters 3 and 4). According to Farris, population growth continued apace during the third subperiod, 1450-1600, despite social problems, including renewed outbreaks of disease, famine, and war (chapters 5 and 6). [End Page 107] In a nutshell, then, Japan's Medieval Population presents a sustained argument that the country's population expanded on the order of 300 percent, from about 5.5-6.3 million in 1150 to 15-17 million in 1600, with almost all the growth coming after 1280 (p. 5). Put another way, the medieval economic and demographic revolution began not in late Heian times but a century or two later-a conclusion that dovetails nicely with other recent assessments, both Western and Japanese, of the importance of the Muromachi period, and particularly the fourteenth century. Unfortunately (to my mind), Farris offers no root cause for the timing of this transition, arguing instead that [p]opulation change in medieval Japan . . . was synergistic, the action of multiple variables, which in turn led to a major transformation that none of the factors could have accomplished individually (p. 5). I find this explanation somehow unsatisfying, although I also suppose that it is true. Of the two groups of chapters, those on population and mortality are generally less convincing than those on background factors, not through any fault of the author's but because of the relative lack of solid historical evidence. Although Farris gamely contends that the overall population record for medieval Japan is surprisingly good-equal to or better than any other place in the world (p. 264), he is still forced to go through various convoluted arguments to..." @default.
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• W2065952307 title "Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age (review)" @default.
• W2065952307 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/mni.2007.0018" @default.
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