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Informationen zum Autor Mary Louise Nagata is a Membre Associate at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and has also been teaching East Asian and Japanese History at University of Minnesota. Klappentext Based on a collection of labor contracts and other documents, this book examines the legal, economic and social relations of labor as they developed in the commercial enterprises of Tokugawa Japan. The urban focus is Kyoto, the cultural capital and smallest of the three great cities of the Tokugawa period, but the data comes from a wider region of commercial and castle towns and rural villages in central Japan. Tokugawa businesses were family firms, but the system differed from that found in European cities at this time, and differences in family practice also resulted in a different organization adapted to business needs. This semi-public family environment also lent itself to conflict as outsiders were incorporated into family space, hierarchies and affairs. Conflict and its resolution is a topic of special interest in this study. Problems such as embezzling, stealing and absconding, and the mechanisms developed to address these problems in the paternalistic environment of family firms are portrayed through letters and other documents of accusation, investigation, apology, reconciliation and punishment. Numerous translated excerpts of documents written by and for workers and employers bring the voice of the people to life and in this analysis of labor relations. Zusammenfassung This book is a study of labour relations in commercial and proto industrial enterprises in Tokugawa Japan. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements 1. Capitalism, Industry and the Organization of Labour 2. Stem Family and Lineage Businesses 3. Labour Organization in Industry 4. Labour Contracts and Contract Labour 5. Workers, Guarantors and Migration Patterns 6. Contract Conditions 7. Conflict and Resolution 8. Labour in Early Modern Japan and Beyond Appendix A: Data Sources Appendix B: Translations of Selected Documents Appendix C: Glossary of Terms Bibliography List of Unpublished Data Sources List of Published Sources Labour Contracts and Labour Relations: Tables and Figures...
