It is commonly assumed that Western ideas somehow wafted to Japan and there landed and took root. A moment's reflection, however, reveals this as unlikely. Ideas do not float from one country to another. They are packed, however carelessly, then exported, or imported. The packing material is language.
When the packaged idea arrives at its destination it is opened up and understood not in the context of the original sender, but in that of the addressee. Consequently, as historian Quentin Skinner has suggested, we ought to study the words that are used to represent ideas and the way in which they are employed in the arguments that constitute political events.
Douglas Howland, author of this interesting and original analysis, demonstrates that the early absorption of Western ideas in Japan was no linear process. "Unlike the tree that arrives with its roots secured in soil and burlap, there was no transplanting of the West in a neat package," he writes. The goal may have been "catching up with the West," but the means were not as simple as has often been assumed.
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