Princeton University

David Howell specializes in the social and economic history of Japan during the Tokugawa (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods. His research focuses mainly on the transformation of Japanese society that accompanied the Meiji Restoration, a 15-year period of political revolution that culminated in 1868. Professor Howell received his B.A. in history from the University of Hawai'i at Hilo in 1981 and his Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 1989. He has been on the faculty at Princeton since 1993. His first book, Capitalism from Within: Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery (1995), follows the development of the herring fishery on the island of Hokkaido to show that an indigenous form of capitalism was taking shape in Japan during the 19th century. Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan (2005) maps the elaborate social order of Tokugawa Japan and examines how the status system functioned across the 19th century, both before and after the Meiji Restoration. Professor Howell is also the author of numerous articles on topics ranging from proto-industrialization to the relationship between the Ainu people and the Japanese state. Beginning in the fall of 2005 he will serve as the chair of the Department of East Asian Studies, of which he is also a member.

Professor Howell is currently writing a book about two widespread anxieties in mid-19th-century Japan, the fear of domestic disorder and the fear of foreign intrusion, and how they were related.

Professor Howell teaches undergraduate courses on East Asia and early modern Japan, and graduate courses on early modern and 19th-century Japan. He also enjoys teaching a freshman seminar on the samurai.