Reddit reviews The Making of Modern Japan

The Making of Modern Japan.

I'm glad you're thinking about this period and these issues, so please take my reply as encouragement to continue rather than discouragement. I've discussed the problems with the idea of "sakoku" and what you're calling the Christian samurai revolt here and here. Please read over those and then come back to this.

So you have some fundamental problems with your premise that you would need to rethink (and get away from popular history books on Japan, they're terrible and misleading). But I think you can still make a paper out of the contact end. At this point, there's little point on focusing on isolation because almost no culture group is entirely isolated from every other culture group. It rarely happens, and in Japan's case, never happened.

Your example with the system of alternating attendance had more to do with the centralization and control needed post Sekigahara as well, so to warn you up front, you can't connect that to "isolation." Though, keeping all of that in mind, you might look at the Satsuma clan. I think that could lead you to a very interesting paper, but that's all the hint I'm going to give you since this is for homework. If you want to ask about resources you can start with, or if you have any questions about my other comments, I'm happy to help and answer, but I'm going to leave you on your own for making connections past that. This book is probably your best place to start.

Hope that helps.

The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen is excellent.

Thanks for the comment, very interesting to read. I'm now slightly more knowledgeable, and just a hair more dunk to make this a great impulse buy!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674009916?pc_redir=1414055008&robot_redir=1

Wow, that is a huge topic.

A few books to look at:

• Marius Jansen's The Making of Modern Japan
  
• Earl Kinmouth's The Self-Made Man in Meiji Japanese Thought: From Samurai to Salary Man
  
  I particularly like Kinmouth's book, but it is not as easy to find these days. If you are at a university library they may have it. Jansen is one of the legends in the field and though his approach may be a bit less nuanced than modern texts, it is of great value.
  
  What level/class is this paper though?

I, too, was looking for some really good Japanese history books and in my searches I found that these are among the best: A History of Japan, by George Sansom.

They start with pre-history and go up to 1867. Sansom's stated reason for not continuing his history beyond this year is that he had lived too close to events of the Meiji Restoration (1868) for him to develop a perspective that only distance could supply. For later events, The Making of Modern Japan (Amazon), by Marius B. Jansen, another outstanding scholar of Japanese history, would be a good choice. Since this history begins at 1600, there are overlapping accounts of the Edo period, but from two quite different perspectives.

An alternative presented by t-o-k-u-m-e-i:
>The best overview text in terms of presentation and interpretation for 1600 to the present is Gordon's A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present.

>The Jansen book is also good, but I (and most of the profs I know) feel that Gordon's interpretation is better

In short, this set is a good buy and is likely to remain a standard text for decades to come.

I've only just recently started reading the first book of the series and I find it very insightful. It starts by describing the geography of Japan and how that shaped and molded the early Japanese and their sensibilities.

Amazon Links:
A History of Japan to 1334
A History of Japan, 1334-1615
A History of Japan, 1615-1867

Google Books Previews:
A History of Japan to 1334
A History of Japan, 1334-1615
A History of Japan, 1615-1867

Author:
Sir George Bailey Sansom

Edit:
The author also has a shorter book published earlier which focuses primarily on culture.
Amazon - Japan: A Short Cultural History
Google Books - Japan: A Short Cultural History

Edit2:
Added an alternative suggestion for the history from 1800 onward given by t-o-k-u-m-e-i.