In Engaging the Other Ronald P. Toby examines new discourses of cultural and ethnic identity and difference in early modern Japan (1550-1850), their articulation in literature, art, performance, law and customs, and their impact on Japanese national identity.

Ronald P. Toby, (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1977), a historian of early-modern Japan, is Professor Emeritus of History and East Asian Studies at the University of Illinois. His books include State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan (1984) and Sakoku' to iu gaikō (2008).