Toshio Kuroda

was a Japanese academic, historian and university professor. A specialist in medieval Japanese history and in the history of Japanese thought, he greatly influenced Japanese historiography with several innovative and controversial theories. His ideas were the opposite of what mainstream academics at the time believed, and for this reason his name is often at the center of controversies. and "revolutionary".

Career Kuroda is known for having published "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion," which argued that Shinto as an independent religion took shape only in the modern period, having emerged in the medieval age as an offshoot of Buddhism. He is also known for his and " theories.

Kuroda's thought and writings influenced the work of such contemporary academics as John Breen and Mark Teeuwen. was entirely dedicated to him under the title "The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio".

Kuroda's position on Shinto In his article "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion", published in English in 1981, Kuroda argues that Shinto as a "distinct, independent and organized religion" is a Meiji era invention of Japanese nationalist ideologues. According to a BBC website, Kuroda's scholarly writings about Shinto are considered important: "The scholar Kuroda Toshio has suggested that the traditional view of Shinto as the indigenous religion of Japan stretching back into pre-history is wrong. He argues that Shinto didn't emerge as a separate religion until comparatively modern times, and that this happened for political reasons. The traditional view, he says, is a modern construction of Shinto that has been projected back into history."

Such has been his influence that today Japanese specialists, when talking about events antecedent the Japanese Middle Ages, to avoid using the term Shinto, have acquired a strong tendency to use instead other terms like .

Kuroda's kenmon taisei Another major contribution was his theory. Traditional scholarship characterized medieval history as the period of emergence of military governments and new forms of Buddhism (the Kamakura Buddhist schools like Rinzai and Nichiren). To the contrary, Kuroda emphasized the continuation of the power of the Kyoto court and of the older schools of Buddhism from the Heian period.

蒙古襲来 (1965) 日本中世封建制論 (1974) 日本中世の国家と宗教 (1975) 寺社勢力: もう一つの中世社会 (1980) 歴史学の再生 : 中世史を組み直す (1983) 王法と仏法: 中世史の構図 (1983) 国家と天皇: 天皇制イデオロギ－としての仏教 (1987) 中世寺院史の研究 (1988) 日本中世の社会と宗教 (1990) 日本中世の国家と宗教 (1990)