Mark Ravina

Who is Mark Ravina?

Mark Ravina is a scholar of early modern Japanese history, and Professor of History at Emory University, where he has taught since 1991. Outside of academic circles, he is likely most well known for his book The Last Samurai: the Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori, published in 2004.

Much of Ravina's scholarly work centers on notions of national identity and state-building in early modern Japan. Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, published in 1999, and thus far his only other book besides The Last Samurai, centers on this topic, as do a number of journal articles and talks given by Ravina. He is one of only a few scholars actively working to challenge those who equate the Tokugawa shogunate's authority with the "state" in Japan in this period. Working off of the ideas and terms coined by Takeshi Mizubayashi, Ravina explores the notion of a "compound state" in which the daimyō are not merely governors in the service of the Tokugawa regime, but rulers of semi-independent states within the greater Tokugawa state.