Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan Buddhism and Its Persecution [Paperback]

How did Buddhism, so prominent in Japanese life for over a thousand years, become the target of severe persecution in the social and political turmoil of the early Meiji era? How did it survive attacks against it and reconstitute itself as an increasingly articulate and coherent belief system and a bastion of the Japanese national heritage? Here James Ketelaar elucidates not only the development of Buddhism in the late nineteenth century but also the strategies of the Meiji state.

"Winner of the 1991 Hans Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation""Finalist for the 1993 Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, American Historical Association""Winner of the 1992 Hiromi Arisawa Award, Association of American University Presses"James Edward Ketelaaris Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japanwas a finalist for the Hiromi Arisawa Prize Award given by the American Association of University Presses. Eloquent and provocative. [This] is one of only a few studies that tackle the question of traditional religions in modernizing Japan. ---John Breen,Monumenta Nipponica A superb narrative about religion in nineteenth-century Japan. . . . One of the best books available that discusses religion in modern Japan. ---William R. LaFleur,Journal of Church and State Well-researched and insightful. ---Janine A. Sawada,Journal of Asian Studies.