Read more
Volume 5 of The Cambridge History of Japan provides the most comprehensive account available in any Western language of Japan's transformation from a feudal society to a modern nation state. It traces the roots and course of political, social, and institutional change that took place in Japan from late Tokugawa times to the early twentieth century. During this period Japan, under pressure from the intrusive West, abandoned its policy of national seclusion and remodeled its institutions to build the strength necessary to join the great powers and to fashion an empire in East Asia. The volume consists of an interrelated collection of authoritative and analytical chapters by specialists in the history of nineteenth-century Japan that discuss the fissures in late feudal society, the impact of and responses to the West, the overthrow of the shogunal government, and the revolutionary changes that were instituted as defensive measures to strengthen the country against what seemed a dangerous competition with the Western world.
List of contents
Introduction Marius B. Jansen; 1. Japan in the early nineteenth century Marius B. Jansen; 2. The Tempo crisis Harold Bolitho; 3. Late Tokugawa culture and thought H. D. Harootunian; 4. The foreign threat and the opening of the ports W. G. Beasley; 5. The Meiji Restoration Marius B. Jansen; 6. Opposition movements in early Meiji, 1868-85 Stephen Vlastos; 7. Japan's turn to the West Hirakawa Sukehiro; 8. Social change Gilbert Rozman; 9. Economic change in the nineteenth century E. Sydney Crawcour; 10. Meiji political institutions W. G. Beasley; 11 Meiji conservatism Kenneth B. Pyle; 12. Japan's drive to great-power status Akira Iriye.
About the author
fm.author_biographical_note1
Summary
This volume covers the end of feudal society and the shogunate in Japan, and the growing power of the emperor.
