Okubo Toshimichi

Okubo Toshimichi
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 388
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520326255
ISBN-13 : 0520326253
Rating : 4/5 (55 Downloads)

Synopsis Okubo Toshimichi by : Masakazu Iwata

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

Splendid Monarchy

Splendid Monarchy
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 326
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0520202376
ISBN-13 : 9780520202375
Rating : 4/5 (76 Downloads)

Synopsis Splendid Monarchy by : Takashi Fujitani

Throughout, he presents rare photographs and woodblock prints to trace the image of the emperor from a mysterious figure secluded inside a palanquin to a grand public personage riding in an open carriage in Western military regalia.

Sources of Japanese Tradition, Abridged

Sources of Japanese Tradition, Abridged
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 676
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0231518153
ISBN-13 : 9780231518154
Rating : 4/5 (53 Downloads)

Synopsis Sources of Japanese Tradition, Abridged by : Wm. Theodore De Bary

For almost fifty years, Sources of Japanese Tradition has been the single most valuable collection of English-language readings on Japan. Unrivalled in its wide selection of source materials on history, society, politics, education, philosophy, and religion, the two-volume textbook is a crucial resource for students, scholars, and readers seeking an introduction to Japanese civilization. Originally published in a single hardcover book, Volume 2 is now available as an abridged, two-part paperback. Part 1 covers the Tokugawa period to 1868, including texts that address the spread of neo-Confucianism and Buddhism and the initial encounters of Japan and the West. Part 2 begins with the Meiji period and ends at the new millennium, shedding light on such major movements as the Enlightenment, constitutionalism, nationalism, socialism, and feminism, and the impact of the postwar occupation. Commentary by major scholars and comprehensive bibliographies and indexes are included. Together, these readings map out the development of modern Japanese civilization and illuminate the thought and teachings of its intellectual, political, and religious leaders.

Japan and Britain After 1859

Japan and Britain After 1859
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 252
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781135786199
ISBN-13 : 1135786194
Rating : 4/5 (99 Downloads)

Synopsis Japan and Britain After 1859 by : Olive Checkland

This book examines the two-way bridge-building cultural exchange which took place between Japan and Britain in the years after 1859 and into the early years of the twentieth century.

Japanese Industrial Governance

Japanese Industrial Governance
Author :
Publisher : Psychology Press
Total Pages : 216
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0415334772
ISBN-13 : 9780415334778
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis Japanese Industrial Governance by : Yul Sohn

"Japanese Industrial Governance uses a wide range of original Japanese sources to explore the evolution of Japanese developmental debates, arguing that the core of the industrial governance system was in fact the result of infant industry protection and high barriers to foreign entry. In response to international pressures, in particular penetration by Anglo-American multinational corporations, the "licensing system," as Sohn refers to it, was not purely an internal, domestic decision, as it is commonly regarded. Using primarily the cases of prewar petroleum and automobiles industries, the focus of this book lies mainly in the late nineteenth century when the Meiji leaders (1868-1912) established non-tariff protective mechanisms, which were strengthened by the massive entry of foreign multinationals during the 1920s. Combined with other industrial policy tools such as subsidies and other financial incentives, the licensing system helped to establish regulated markets."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cataloging and Classification

Cataloging and Classification
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 803
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781442232501
ISBN-13 : 1442232501
Rating : 4/5 (01 Downloads)

Synopsis Cataloging and Classification by : Lois Mai Chan

The fourth edition of the late Lois Mai Chan's classic Cataloging and Classification covers the analysis and representation of methods used in describing, organizing, and providing access to resources made available in or through libraries. Since the last edition published in 2007, there have been dramatic changes in cataloging systems from the Library of Congress. The most notable being the shift from AACR2 to Resource Description and Access (RDA) as the new standard developed by the Library of Congress. With the help of the coauthor, Athena Salaba, this text is modified throughout to conform to the new standard. Retaining the overall outline of the previous edition, this text presents the essence of library cataloging and classification in terms of three basic functions: descriptive cataloging, subject access, and classification. Within this framework, all chapters have been rewritten to incorporate the changes that have occurred during the interval between the third and fourth editions. In each part, the historical development and underlying principles of the retrieval mechanism at issue are treated first, because these are considered essential to an understanding of cataloging and classification. Discussion and examples of provisions in the standards and tools are then presented in order to illustrate the operations covered in each chapter. Divided into five parts—a general overview; record production and structure, encoding formats, and metadata records; RDA; subject access and controlled vocabularies; and the organization of library resources—each part of the book begins with a list of the standards and tools used in the preparation and processing of that part of the cataloging record covered, followed by suggested background readings selected to help the reader gain an overview of the subject to be presented. This book is the standard text for the teaching and understanding of cataloging and classification.

MAKERS OF JAPAN

MAKERS OF JAPAN
Author :
Publisher : BEYOND BOOKS HUB
Total Pages : 236
Release :
ISBN-10 :
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Synopsis MAKERS OF JAPAN by : JOSEPH E. MORRIS

Modern Japan dates from the advent on the coast of Idzu province of the American squadron under Commodore Perry in 1853. Prior to that time, however, more than one attempt, predestined to failure, had been made to bring about the abolition of the feudal system, the agitators, in nearly every case, paying the penalty of their boldness with their lives. Among the more famous of these heroes were Fujita Toko, Yoshida Shoin, and Sakuma Shozan, — patriots who shone during the first half of the nineteenth century. They were in advance of their age. They lived in the days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, when old ideas on the subject of foreign intercourse still were uppermost. It was dangerous to advocate, as these men did, a policy of complete reconstruction on an imperialistic basis, yet they had the courage of their opinions, and with might and main advocated recourse to Occidental arts and sciences for the express object of rendering their country strong to resist aggression in every form. Their memory is held by all their fellow-countrymen in the very highest respect, not more for their self-sacrifice than for the real benefits that are seen to have accrued to the people from their foresight. One lost his life in a terrible earthquake another was executed by order of the Sho-gun, and the third was stabbed to death by Ro-nins, or “Wave-men,” the turbulent spirits of an epoch of social and political unrest. All three are esteemed as martyrs in the cause of progress. And although the country was not reopened, after its voluntary seclusion of two centuries and a half, until the treaty with the United States which Perry negotiated became operative in 1854, many surreptitious efforts had been made to obtain a footing in the Japanese empire, between the time of the East India Company’s withdrawal in 1623 and the appearance of the “black ships” of the American squadron in Kurihama Bay. The Portuguese had found their way to the isles of Japan as early as 1542, and might have remained there indefinitely had they not aimed at the acquisition of political power, as well as at the spread of the Christian religion. Expulsion followed persecution, and the sins of the Portuguese were visited on all foreigners indiscriminately, access to the Land of the Rising Sun being from that date denied to all aliens alike, save a few Dutchmen who were permitted on somewhat humiliating conditions to remain at Nagasaki for purposes of trade. Will Adams, sailor and shipwright, of Limehouse, London, passed the last twenty years of his life at Yedo, and died on the 6th of May 1620, while still in the service of the Shogun Iyemitsu, and contemporarily with him there dwelt for a time at Hirado, a tiny island on the west coast of Kiu-shiu, between which and the mainland flow the “Spex Straits,” a certain Captain John Saris, founder of the East India Company’s depot there. These men were in reality the first to obtain a footing on Japanese soil as representatives of England. Adams died and was buried near Yokohama, and Saris returned to London, on the retirement of his Company, for the time being, from the Japanese trade. There came also to the Japanese ports at various times travellers from Russia, including an embassy under M. Resanoff, whalers from the United States, and several British warships and merchantmen. The Eclipse of Boston, Mass., was at Nagasaki as early as 1807, and the British man-of-war Phaeton called at that port the following year. M. Golownin spent two years in captivity to the feudal lord of Matsumaye in Yeso, in 1811-1813, and the famous Dr Von Siebold was able to pass four years, from 1825 to 1829, in the Shogun’s capital of Yedo, or as it was then commonly spelt, Jeddo. The King William who reigned in Holland in 1844 contrived, it is said, to have his autograph letter presented in that year to the supposed ruler of Japan, in reality the Shogun, urging the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse. There was an American whaler in Yedo Bay in 1845, and two such vessels were wrecked soon afterwards on the Japanese coasts, their crews being well treated by the inhabitants. Five years before Commodore Perry landed at Uraga there had been some American vessels in Yedo Bay under Commodore Biddle, and a British ship, the Mariner, found her way thither in 1849. By such means more and more had come to be known of Japan and its people, though in a vague, disjointed fashion, among the dwellers in the Occident, despite the existence of Iyemitsu’s edict prohibiting travel. Still, the rule was very strictly enforced, and even those subjects of the Japanese Emperor who had chanced to be carried off to America in vessels by which they had been saved when shipwrecked in their own junks were not permitted to return to their own country until after its formal opening to commerce in 1854. Some who had thus involuntarily quitted their native land as children were scarcely able to speak their mother tongue on their return, though well acquainted with English, which they had acquired in the interval. Needless to say, they speedily recovered the use of Japanese as a language and became of immense service to their country as interpreters at a time when very few who knew English were to be met with there. Much more was known in those days of Dutch than of any other foreign tongue, as works in Dutch had been procured of the “Oranda-jin” — as the Hollanders were termed — then dwelling in Nagasaki, and had been most diligently studied, not less for the sake of learning the language than of absorbing the information on scientific matters which those works were fitted to convey. Concurrently with the growth of a desire for the restoration of the true imperial rule there had been a revival of learning, and Confucianism, long in decay by reason of the greater attachment of the masses to the tenets of Buddhism, began again to take hold of the popular mind. Chinese literature had become once more the study of the educated classes, and a demand arose for everything introduced from China which was only equalled, perhaps, by that created a half-century later for things European. In proportion as Buddhism lost its hold of the people the ancient Shinto religion, which is based upon the veneration of ancestors, and is directly connected with the patriotic devotion of the subjects of the Ten-shi to the Imperial house, acquired fresh strength, to the complete overthrow of the Buddhistic faith and its disestablishment as a State religion. Under the Tokugawa regime it had attained to immense power and influence, but with the conviction gaining ground everywhere that the best interests of the country were to be served only by the assumption of the active duties of sovereignty by the real monarch instead of his delegate, the cult of Shinto triumphed and the Buddhistic religion, though by no means extinguished, took second place in the estimation of his Majesty’s loyal subjects. But this was not until nearly eighteen years had elapsed from the date of Perry’s arrival at Uraga, and in the interval the country underwent innumerable vicissitudes, the effects in reality of the sharp divergences of opinion which the proposal to throw open the country to foreign trade and intercourse created. There were two parties in the State — viz. the Jo-I or party of exclusion, and the Kai-koku or party of admission. Jo signifies expulsion, — to thrust from one, — and I means a barbarian. Kai-koku, on the other hand, was literally “to open the country,” and the distinction between the two parties was therefore most marked. Eventually the Jo-I party became the O-Sei or party of Imperial Government, in opposition to the Baku-fu, lit.: Military Curtain government, by which was meant the government of the Shogun. Naturally all those who were opposed from one cause or another to the prolongation of the prevailing system of government by the Shogun ranged themselves under the banner of the Jo-I, whether actually hostile to aliens or not, but when the cry for expulsion had served its purpose the promoters of the movement against the Bakufu were willing enough that it should be abolished, in favour of a term which more aptly expressed the real objects and desires of the party so constituted. It is a fact that many of Japan’s foremost statesmen were originally members of the Jo-I organisation, though it certainly is not from that to be inferred that they were at any period of their careers downright hostile to foreigners. The famous motto was adopted essentially as a matter of policy. Anxieties were multiplied for the Baku-fu when an Englishman, who formed one of a party out riding on the highroad between Yokohama and Yedo, was cut down and killed by swordsmen belonging to the retinue of the Prince of Satsuma. That was in September 1862, and it brought matters to a climax. The British Charge d’Affaires, Colonel Neale, demanded instant reparation, but though indemnities were paid to Mr Richardson’s relatives, both by the Shogun’s government and the daimio of Satsuma, the actual assailants escaped justice. A little while prior to this outrage the chiefs of Satsuma and Choshiu had united in a league for the “subjugation and expulsion of the Barbarians,” and as loyal retainers of their respective lords many of the men who have since been most prominent in the establishment of a new Japan were greatly embarrassed, for while their convictions led them to the adoption of every art and science that was likely to render Japan a strong nation, their strict obedience to their chieftain’s views would have entailed the complete abandonment of their hopes of profiting by the experience and knowledge of the Occident, since it would have involved a return to conditions which had prevailed in the years preceding 1853. Those Choshiu men in particular, who were known to favour the introduction of Western arts, went, therefore, with their lives in their hands, and one to whom reference will be made at a later stage, bears to this day the marks of cuts which he received in an attempt made upon his life by some of his fellow-clansmen, whose ideas on the subject of foreign intercourse were not identical with his own. I allude to Count Inouye, whose cheek was sliced by an antagonist’s weapon whilst he was stoutly defending himself against an altogether unexpected onslaught by a Yamaguchi samurai. The alliance of the two great Southern daimios for the repudiation of the treaties and the expulsion of aliens was not of a lasting character, nor was it intended, perhaps, that it should live long, for the object, no doubt, was to exert pressure on the Shogun rather than to wage war on the strangers. Nevertheless the attitude assumed towards foreigners, to be consistent, could not be other than one of hostility for the time being, and accordingly we find the lords of the two provinces named drifted soon afterwards into open defiance of the Occidentals’ naval power and the actions of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki, the first as a consequence of the daimio’s refusal to punish his people for the Richardson murder, and the second as the result of persistency in firing on passing European vessels, ensued, in 1863 and 1864. How far the feudatories named were indulging their own caprices in thus defying the Western powers, and how far they sought merely to carry out what they conceived to be their Emperor’s wishes, cannot now be known, but that they were amply warranted by Imperial orders in impeding the entry of aliens is proved by the Emperor Komei having sent a high official of the Court to Yedo with a letter to instruct the Shogun to expel all foreigners. This remarkable despatch conveyed the Emperor’s desire that the Shogun would forthwith proceed to Kioto to take counsel with the court nobles and thereupon despatch orders to the various clans, throughout the empire, to the effect that by dint of all their strength they should combine to thrust out the barbarians and restore tranquillity to the land. Though the Shogun did not go to Kioto just then, it was not through disobedience to his Imperial master’s commands, and it is probable that had not the trouble with the Satsuma procession occurred on the Tokaido, near Tsurumi village (where there is now a railway station), and had not Richardson’s life been forfeited, the Shogun would have felt himself obliged to take measures to enforce the Emperor’s order for the foreigners’ expulsion. That the Emperor Komei was very much in earnest about the matter is to be inferred from the fact that the official charged with the conveyance of the message to the Shogun was accompanied by the Prince of Satsuma, at the imperial desire, and it was when the Satsuma chieftain was returning to his own province after the execution of the Emperor’s instructions to escort his messenger to Yedo that the deplorable affair occurred at Tsurumi, and the Satsuma clan was plunged into direct antagonism with the subjects of foreign powers. The failure on the part of the Shogun to punish it, not from lack of inclination, but from military inability to perform the task, resulted in the bombardment of Kagoshima by the British squadron in the following summer. It deserves mention that, despite their avowed antipathy to the admission of foreigners to their country, the Satsuma clansmen were ready at that early date to avail themselves of Western appliances to the utmost, and on the principle that to retain her position among the nations Japan must adopt all the arts and sciences that would help her to become strong to hold her own, they had bought guns, and ships, of modern type, and proceeded to make the best use of both, as far as their limited experience could serve them, immediately that the British admiral entered the Bay of Kagoshima with his fleet. They did not wait for him to open fire: they took the initiative themselves, and with unquestionable courage and skill. Satsuma has, indeed, from the very beginning of the new regime been prominent in both the army and the navy, and though it must always be a matter of extreme difficulty to draw distinctions where the clansmen were without exception prompt to wield the sword on slight provocation in defence of their own or the national honour, the men of Satsuma ever bore the reputation under the old regime of being a warlike and indomitable race. After 1863 their attitude towards the strangers speedily became less hostile, and they imported machinery for a cotton mill, bought more steamers, and in every way evinced a resolve to lose no further time in vain efforts to sweep back the tide that they saw was steadily and irresistibly advancing. On the contrary, they perceived that it would be to their advantage to float with it, for the clans that might be the first to arm themselves on the foreign model, and likewise most prompt to adapt themselves to changed circumstances, by copying the European methods of warfare, would be the first to profit by the military supremacy they could hardly fail to acquire over the others. Gradually the notion of expelling foreigners lost ground, so the way was paved for a better understanding with the nations of the Occident. And the trend of opinion in Satsuma was quickly seen to be communicating itself to Choshiu, where the feudal chieftain Mori, after his defeat at Shimonoseki by the combined fleet under Admiral Kuper, was willing to enter into peaceful relations with the subjects of other powers, and exhibited every disposition to be on terms of friendship for the future. It is recorded of the lord Mori that in 1864 he declared his readiness to admit foreigners to the ports in his barony of Choshiu, within a few months only of the actual engagement between his forts and the combined fleet, and the daimio’s attitude may have been modified by the representations of Ito and Inouye, who although they failed to impress on him the futility of opposing the allied squadrons may nevertheless have in some degree led their chieftain to recognise the benefits that would accrue to a speedy adoption of modern weapons and the arts of the Occident, as conferring exceptional strength on those who might be content to sink their prejudices and avail themselves of the improved appliances which lay ready to their hands. At all events it seems to be fair to assume that the supremacy of the Satsuma and Choshiu clans in the councils of the state which in later years became so noticeable as to excite the jealousy of others had its origin in the willingness evinced by the daimios of those clans to listen to the recommendations of patriotic samurai who owned allegiance to them. What is true of Satsuma and Choshiu is of course equally true of the other clans prominent in the struggle for the revival of imperial rule, namely Hizen and Tosa. In the course of this work it will be fitting that I should invite attention to the individual share which each of those who are classed as Makers of Japan actually took in the most remarkable undertaking of recent years, though in the earlier phases of the Restoration struggle they were merely units of the clans to which most of them belonged. And fame rests with those Southern clans since it was by their combined action and unity of purpose that the Emperor Mutsuhito was invested, almost from the first, with that direct sovereign government of his subjects which for so many centuries had been denied to his predecessors on the throne, and which is now so conspicuously predominant in the relations that exist in Japan between the monarch and his dutiful and contented people. With the assent of the Emperor Komei in 1865 to the Treaties made by the Shogun began brighter days for Japan, and if it must be owned that the benefits were at first unrecognised, and that considerable opposition was in some quarters manifested to the innovations proposed, matters had advanced so far, prior to the accession to the throne of the present sovereign, that there was hope of the total abolition of feudalism, and the inauguration of an essentially new regime. The world has never ceased to marvel at the ease with which this stupendous alteration was effected. In other lands when a revolution has been brought about it usually has been only at a vast cost in human life. True, the northern and southern clans fought in Japan, but the strife was not of long duration, nor was it of a particularly sanguinary character in comparison with the terrible slaughter that has often accompanied revolution elsewhere. It left behind it no traces of animus to disturb the harmony of the future among the subjects of the Japanese Emperor. That these magnificent results were attained, and that Japan has never one inch receded from the position that she took up nearly forty years ago, are facts that may in a large degree be ascribed to the prudence, genius, and statesmanlike capacity of many of those pioneers in thought and action of whose careers these pages are intended to form a brief, and necessarily most imperfect, record. In the preparation of this volume my object has been to convey (a) A general impression of Japan and her people; (b) The workings of reform, as exemplified in the lives of some of her patriots. In the several chapters devoted to the history of these Makers of Japan I have sought to explain the part which each played in the introduction of reforms, and to portray the situation in Japan now that those measures for which they were responsible may be said to have taken full effect. In brief, the aim has been to supply History through the medium of Biography. I cannot do better, perhaps, than quote a sentence or two which recently fell from the lips of one of Japan’s greatest statesmen, Count Okuma, and whose career is briefly recorded in the following pages: — “Now that peace has crowned the tremendous efforts which Japan made in the War with Russia the effect upon herself will be that she will be able to make still greater progress in the paths of civilisation, and the true spirit of the Japanese nation will have more room to display itself. Japan has never been an advocate of war, and will never draw her sword from its sheath unless compelled to do so by the pressure of foreign powers. She fought to secure peace, not for the sake of making war, and was only too glad to lay down her weapons as soon as peace was obtainable, and to devote herself to the promotion of interests of a nobler kind. The eminence of Japan is ascribable to no mere mushroom growth; it has its roots in the past, and her progress is to be explained by natural causes which anyone may comprehend who cares to study her history attentively. The late war was not one of race against race, or of religion against religion, and the victory of Japan points to the ultimate blending into one harmonious whole of the ancient and modern civilisations of East and West.” My thanks are due to His Excellency Viscount Hayashi and the members of the Japanese Embassy in London, by all of whom the most kindly interest has been taken in my work, and from whom I have received most valuable aid in its preparation. Also to Baron Suyematsu, who assisted me greatly with his personal reminiscences and who revised the chapter on Marquis Ito, his father-in-law. I have also to record my indebtedness to the Editor and Mr S. Imai of the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, from whom I received material help in regard to the history of those earlier Makers of Japan who flourished in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. I have availed myself of every opportunity of consulting the writings of Messrs Black and Rein, and the works on Japan and its affairs by Count Matsukata, Sir R. Alcock, Sir E. Reed, Sir Robert K. Douglas, Messrs Hearn, Clement, and many others, and I have taken my figures for the most part from Japanese official publications. When in 1895 I wrote “Advance, Japan!” I ventured to predict the rise of Japanese influence in China and that Japan would be “the lever to set the Chinese mass in motion” though her efforts would “tend towards the consolidation of the Chinese Empire rather than to its disintegration.” That work was translated in 1904 into Russ avowedly in order that the Tsar’s people might learn something of the nation they were fighting. In 1898 I had written “What will Japan do?” and had based the story on a firm conviction that she would defeat Russia when the inevitable contest should occur, the date I ventured to assign for the outbreak of hostilities being, as it turned out, three years too soon. That little volume was at once translated into Japanese. If in the attempt that I have now made to assign to the chief personages their due positions in respect of their nation’s stirring history, I have in the smallest degree succeeded in conveying useful information concerning our allies and their country to the people of the Occident, I shall not have laboured in vain, and in submitting my work in all humility — conscious of its many defects and shortcomings — to the judgment of the public, my one hope is that it may be of some slight service to those who may honour me by perusing its pages. J. M... FROME THE BOOK.

Confrontation Over Taiwan

Confrontation Over Taiwan
Author :
Publisher : Lexington Books
Total Pages : 332
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0739118692
ISBN-13 : 9780739118696
Rating : 4/5 (92 Downloads)

Synopsis Confrontation Over Taiwan by : Leonard H. D. Gordon

Confrontation over Taiwan: Nineteenth Century China and the Powers is a full and detailed account of international relations of Taiwan during the nineteenth century and specifically, the period between 1840 and 1895. During this time the western powers and Japan were engaged in imperialist designs seeking commercial and strategic gain in the South China Sea, which ultimately led to the Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Leonard Gordon, a diplomatic historian of East Asia, closely examines the foreign policies of China, Great Britain, the United States, France, and Japan. Also taking account of historic events on Taiwan and the mainland, Gordon has researched, in addition to the extensive published national records, unpublished archival materials in Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain. Providing a context for understanding the current situation in Taiwan, the thorough research and historical analysis of Confrontation over Taiwan make this an essential book for students of East Asian History and International Affairs.

The Meiji Restoration

The Meiji Restoration
Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Total Pages : 534
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0804779902
ISBN-13 : 9780804779906
Rating : 4/5 (02 Downloads)

Synopsis The Meiji Restoration by : W. Beasley

First, there are questions concerning the role and relative importance of internal and external factors in the pattern of events. Did the activities of the Western powers prompt changes in Japan that would not otherwise have taken place? Or did they merely hasten a process that had already begun? Similarly, did Western civilization give a new direction to Japanese development, or do no more than provide the outward forms through which indigenous change could manifest itself? Was it a matrix, or only a shopping list? Second, how far was the evolution of modern Japan in some sense "inevitable"? Were the main features of Meiji society already implicit in the Tempo reforms, only awaiting an appropriate trigger to bring them into being? More narrowly, was the character of Meiji institutions determined by the social composition of the anti-Tokugawa movement, or did it derive from a situation that took shape only after the Bakufu was overthrown? This is to pose the problem of the relationship between day-to-day politics and long-term socioeconomic change. One can argue, paraphrasing Toyama, that the political controversy about foreign affairs provided the means by which basic socioeconomic factors became effective; or one can say, with Sakata, that the relevance of socioeconomic change is that it helped to decide the manner in which the fundamentally political ramifications of the foreign question were worked out. The difference of emphasis is significant. Finally, have recent historians, in their preoccupation with other issues, lost sight of something important in their relative neglect of ideas qua ideas? Ought we perhaps to stop treating loyalty to the Emperor as simply a manifestation of something else? After all, the men whose actions are the object of our study took that loyalty seriously enough, certainly as an instrument of politics, if not as an article of faith.

Makers Of Japan

Makers Of Japan
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 243
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780429869518
ISBN-13 : 0429869517
Rating : 4/5 (18 Downloads)

Synopsis Makers Of Japan by : J Morris

First Published in 1906, Morris melds Japanese culture and historic past to create a discourse on the change in attitude to foreign powers in the 1800’s. By providing a general impression of Japan and her people, and discussing the workings of reform, as exemplified in the lives of her patriots, the book explores Japan’s status amongst the international community as an enlightened nation and modern powerhouse.