, commonly known as , was a Japanese historian and

Sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

. He was the founder of the Kyoto School of

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

, and along with Shiratori Kurakichi (the founder of the Tokyo School), was one of the leading Japanese historians of East Asia in the early twentieth century. His most well-known book is called ''

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

''.

Biography

He was born in what is today

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is estimated 915,691 as of 1 August 2023 and its geographi ...

. He distinguished himself as a journalist. In 1907 he discovered Manwen Laodang in

Mukden Shenyang,; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly known as Fengtian formerly known by its Manchu name Mukden, is a sub-provincial city in China and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. It is the province's most populous city with a p ...

. As an authority of Chinese history, he was invited to

Kyoto Imperial University , or , is a national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen graduate schools, and t ...

by Kano Kokichi in 1907 and got involved in the foundation of the Department of Oriental History. Naitō's most influential contribution to historiography was the recognition and analysis of the "Tang-Song transition" as an important watershed. He argued that the social, political, demographic and economic changes that occurred between the mid-

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

and early

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

represented the transition between the medieval (''chūsei'') and early modern (''kinsei'') periods of Chinese history. In Japanese history, Naitō argued that

Yamataikoku Yamatai or Yamatai-koku is the Sino-Japanese vocabulary, Sino-Japanese name of an ancient country in Wa (Japan) during the late Yayoi period The Chinese language, Chinese text ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' first recorded the name as ()Sc ...

was located in

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

rather than in

Kinki The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolit ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naito, Torajiro 1866 births 1934 deaths People from Kazuno, Akita Japanese Japanologists Japanese sinologists Academic staff of Kyoto University Japanese journalists 20th-century Japanese historians Akita University alumni Historians of Japan Historians of China

Biography

Further reading

References