This huge, ambitious study is the final product of 50 years of research and reflection, and should become an indispensable first reference for anyone seeking detailed information in English about Uchimura. A welcome addition to the fast-growing body of valuable new writing on Japan.
- C.L. Yates, Earlham College, Choice
In researching this masterful work, Howes delved deeply into Uchimura’s writings, diaries and letters in order to portray his subject as a passionate yet conflicted man influenced as much by internal pressures as he was by external forces ... With this book, Howes has made an important and detailed contribution to our understanding of Japanese Christians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Jeff Alexander, the University of British Columbia, Pacific Affairs, vol. 78, no. 4, winter 2005/2006
This long-awaited critical biography of Uchimura, by John Howes, professor emeritus of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, represents over fifty years of dedicated study ... The book is skillfully structure, enabling Howes to link his sensitive analysis of Uchimura’s intellectual development to the major events in his life and the world around him.
- Helen Ballhatchet, Keio University, Tokyo, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 30, no. 3, July 2006
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: I Refuse
1 Education of a Meiji Samurai
2 Budding Civil Servant
3 Birth of a Writer
4 Justification of Self and of Nation
5 Out into the World
Part 2: The Pact with God
6 With Luther Presiding
7 The Taught
8 The Teaching: Christianity and the Bible
9 The Teaching: Institutions and Individuals
10 The Last Chance
Part 3: I Am Not
11 Christ Is Coming
12 The Bible and Japan
13 The Sage
14 Telling Off the West
15 Maturing Vipers
16 What Is Mukyôkai?
Conclusion: Uchimura Kanzô in History
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index