Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern JapanExploring the emergence and evolution of theories of nationhood that continue to be evoked in present day Japan, Susan L. Burns provides a close examination of the late eighteenth century intellectual movement kokugaku, which means "the study of our country." Departing from earlier studies of kokugaku that focused on intellectuals whose work has been valorized by modern scholars, Burns seeks to recover the multiple ways "Japan" as social and cultural