This essay traces the evolution of Japan's systems of household and land registration from Tokugawa times to the period of early Meiji reforms in the 1870s and 80s. The paper pays due attention to the distinction between an early modern system designed by state authority and local forms...

This paper overviews the economic history of the period between 1853, the year when Commodore Perry's 'black ships' arrived at Shimoda, and 1885, the year that marked the end of the so-called Matsukata recession period. The chapter will trace economic, political and regime changes during this...

This paper aims to offer new estimates of gainfully occupied workers in Japan between 1885 and 1940. The estimates are made by taking explicitly widespread farm-family by-employment into account, and then they will be allocated into the primary, secondary and tertiary (PST) sectors. With the new...

It is well known that there have been persistent differences in demographic rates between northern and southern areas in post-independence India: in the north marital fertility is higher, infant mortality higher and life expectancy shorter than in the south. As Tim Dyson has shown for infant...

In the latter half of the Tokugawa period economic growth, however sluggish its pace was, took place in the form of rural industrialisation and the expansion of inter-regional trade. This paper addresses the following questions: how capital was mobilised for such rural-centred growth in...

This paper surveys changing interrelationships between man and the earth's forest cover over the past several centuries. The focus is on the interplay between population increase, deforestation and afforestation at both ends of Eurasia. By looking at three numerical indicators-percentage...