| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Selçuk Esenbel. Even the Gods Rebel: The Peasants of Takaino and the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Japan. (Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, number 57.) Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies. 1998. Pp. 415. $38.00.

The Nakano peasants who sought redress for their grievances against the new Meiji government in 1871 assumed that they would benefit from protest. For over a hundred years, they had been accustomed to negotiating compromises with their rulers that had gradually reduced their taxes to less than twenty percent of total agricultural production. Furthermore, peasants in nearby domains had just succeeded in lowering tax rates and gaining recompense for the government's closure of the regional investment/trading company. The Nakano peasants guessed wrong. Following their ouster of the local governor, the murder of two officials, and the burning of the prefectural office as well as much of the surrounding town, the central authorities dispatched troops to suppress the uprising and punish its participants in unprecedented numbers. All concessions were refused lest they erode the uniform national tax rate. The Nakano peasants inadvertently found themselves becoming an object lesson in the coercive power of the modern state. . . .

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