Aizawa Seishisai

nihongo|Aizawa Seishisai|会沢正志斎 (1781-1863), born nihongo|Aizawa Yasushi|会沢安, was a Japanese nationalist thinker of the Mito school during the late shogunate period.

In 1799 he became involved in the compilation of the "Dai Nihon-shi" (Great History of Japan) being undertaken by the Mito school.

In 1825 he wrote his "Shinron" ("New Theses"), a collection of essays that mainly dealt with the concept of "kokutai" ("national polity"), a term which Aizawa popularised. The "Shinron" warned of the threat of foreign ships and later became an important work for the sonnō jōi movement.

In 1840 Aizawa became the first head of professors of the Mito school's "Kōdōkan" but was forced to resign in 1844 when Tokugawa Nariaki resigned as domain leader. He later returned to the "Kōdōkan".

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*cite book|title=Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825|author=Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1986|id=ISBN 0674040252