Takeshi Mizubayashi

is a professor in the Graduate School of Law at Hitotsubashi University, and professor emeritus of Tokyo Metropolitan University. His field of specialty is the history of law in Japan, a term now widely used by Western scholars as well, including Mark Ravina Using this term, Mizubayashi and others reenvision the Tokugawa state not as a single, unified, bureaucratic entity, but as a feudal conglomeration of loosely tied together by their fealty to the shogunate, and by other obligations and systems imposed by the shogunate. In other words, he refocuses attention away from the shogunate, to the individual domains; building upon Mizubayashi's work, a considerable number of scholars have since published articles and books analyzing the history of individual han and reconsidering the extent to which they might be regarded as separate small countries, more loosely connected to the shogunate than was previously thought.

Selected publications 「近世の法と国制研究序説」 (Kinsei no hō to kokusei kenkyū josetsu, "Introduction to Early Modern Law and Research of the Nation-System"). Parts 1–6. 国家学会雑誌 (Kokka gakkai zasshi, "Journal of the Association of Political and Social Sciences") vol. 90–95. 1977–1982. 「封建制の再編と日本的社会の確立」 (Hōkensei no saihen to Nihon-teki shakai no kakuritsu, "Reorganization of the Feudal System and the Establishment of Japanese Society"). Tokyo: Yamakawa Publishing, 1987. 「徳島藩の史的構造」 (Tokushima han no shiteki kōzō, "Historical Construction of Tokushima Domain"). Meicho Publishing, 1975.