How the Japanese Intelligentsia of the 19th Century Got Educated Based on Books in the Dutch Language (Rangaku)

Abstract

This study aims to rectify the perception that the Shogunate (the Japanese government of the 19th century) mainly received know-how about medical sciences through their information acquisition via the Dutch presence in Nagasaki. Studies of that time, based on the information acquired from the Dutch are referred to ‘Rangaku’ or Dutch Studies. When discussing ‘Rangaku,’ the advance of western medical sciences immediately comes to mind as this is the field that is nowadays remembered best for its big advance at that time. Based on the inventory of a cache of more than 1,000 books (discovered in 1954) purchased by the Shogunate and following up on the earlier related studies, this study reports on a simple statistical analysis demonstrating that medical related books and reading materials were merely ranked sixth among the genres while the top ranking was about military sciences. The study introduces three examples that are respectively from three different genres, all of which are significant in the development of the modern Japanese nation.



Author Information
Masako Nishikawa-Van Eester, Nishogakusha University, Japan

Paper Information
Conference: ACEID2022
Stream: Knowledge Creation

This paper is part of the ACEID2022 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Eester M. (2022) How the Japanese Intelligentsia of the 19th Century Got Educated Based on Books in the Dutch Language (Rangaku) ISSN: 2189-101X – The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2022 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2022.8
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2022.8


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon