Honda Toshiaki

Honda Toshiaki (本多 利明, 1744 - January 25, 1821, born in Murakami, Niigata Prefecture) was a Japanese political economist in the late Edo period.

Born in Echigo, Toshiaki went to Edo to study astronomy, mathematics and kendo. At the age of 24, he opened his own school. He wrote A Secret Plan of Government (Keisei Hisaku; 経世秘策), in which he proposed lifting a ban of a foreign trade and colonization of Ezo, and Tales of the West (Seiiki Monogatari; 西域物語), both in 1798.^[1]

References

1. Excerpts of both can be found in the book by Donald Keene.

Bibliography

• Keene, Donald. The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0668-9. [revised and expanded edition of The Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers, 1720-1798, London, 1952]