I am a PhD student at Yale University working on the social and economic history of Tokugawa Japan. I focus on the role of merchant capital in Japanese society in the 18th and 19th centuries. In my dissertation project, I look at how large merchant operations worked, their role in binding together markets across the Japanese archipelago, and the impact of their money on social and power relations in local and regional society. I explore these issues through the close study of one of the largest and most successful merchant houses of the period -- the Nakai Genzaemon -- who founded over 20 stores spanning from western to northeastern Japan. Outside of my dissertation project, I am interested in local history and work as a volunteer for the Miyagi Shiryo Network, an organization committed to the preservation of historical documents in northeastern Japan.
