Honda Toshiaki

Honda Toshiaki (本多 利明, 1744 - January 25, 1821, born in Murakami, Niigata Prefecture) was a Japanese political economist in the late Edo period.

In this Japanese name, the surname is Honda.

Born in Echigo, Toshiaki went to Edo to study astronomy, mathematics and kendo. At the age of 24, he opened his own school. He wrote A Secret Plan of Government (Keisei Hisaku; 経世秘策), in which he proposed lifting a ban of a foreign trade and colonization of Ezo, and Tales of the West (Seiiki Monogatari; 西域物語), both in 1798.[1]

Toshiaki was a polymath who knew a bit about the Western world, and wrote that Japan ought to mimic the policies of England, another island country, and "called for more active official promotion of national wealth and strength". In particular, he wrote about four goals for the Japan of his day:

  • Production of gunpowder
  • Smelting of iron and other metals
  • Setting up a merchant fleet
  • Settlement of Ezo in the north[2]

References
  1. Excerpts of both can be found in the book by Donald Keene.
  2. Duus, Peter (1998). Modern Japan (2nd ed.). Stanford University: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 58. ISBN 0-395-74604-3.

Bibliography
  • Keene, Donald. The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0668-9. [revised and expanded edition of The Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers, 1720-1798, London, 1952]
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