Modern Japan A History in Documents

by Huffman, James L.

• ISBN13: 9780195147421
• ISBN10: 0195147421
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-12-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The civilization of Japan is an ancient one, and by the time the firstWestern visitors arrived in 1542, the Japanese people were as highly educated asany in the world and enjoyed a sophisticated culture. From the sixteenth centuryon, the country's history was shaped by a tension between its people's thirst tounderstand foreign institutions and customs and their determination to assertand preserve its native traditions. In Modern Japan, James Huffman tells therich and dynamic story of this history through a fascinating range of primarysource documents.A picture essay is dedicated to the tumultuous decade and a half following thearrival of Commodore Matthew Perry and the U.S. Navy in 1853, which led to anunprecedented opening of Japan to the West and accompanying turmoil. While manyJapanese welcomed the strangers, "men of zeal" signed blood oaths to drive outthe barbarians. The picture essay explores this cultural clash, with Americanand Japanese portraits of Perry pointing up the differences in attitude towardthis divisive figure, and a photograph of a Japanese diplomatic mission toWashington dramatically underlining the cultural differences between theJapanese and the Westerners. The essay also demonstrates the new mixture ofcultures, as traditional Japanese art forms depict the lively foreign businessdistrict in Yokohama. This cultural clash led to peasant uprisings and a coup,illustrated in ink and paint, that brought an end to the stable, introvertedTokugawa rule and signaled the beginning of a new era for Japan.Other primary sources in this collection include memoirs, school textbooks, theprison diary of a woman involved in a plot to assassinate the emperor, politicalspeeches, a chilling eyewitness account of the dropping of the atomic bomb onHiroshima, and a comic book description of Adam Smith's economic theories. Takenwith the author's illuminating commentary, these diverse voices trace Japan'shistory from its first uneasy interactions with the Western world to the pointwhere Japanese culture, goods, and people-from sushi, ramen noodles, karaoke,videos, anime, and automobiles to major-league baseball players-have come topervade the world as a part of the common international heritage.

Author Biography

James L. Huffman is the H. Orth Hirt Professor of History at Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio. He is the author of several books including Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan (U. Hawai'i Press, 1987) and Politics of the Meiji Press: The Life of Fukuchi Gen'ichiro (U. Hawai'i Press, 1980).

Table of Contents

What is a Document?	6	(2)
How to Read a Document	8	(3)
Introduction	11	(6)
The Shogun's Realm	17	(30)
Closing the Country	20	(8)
A Feudal Regime	28	(9)
Life Under the Tokugawa	37	(5)
The Shogunate Under Challenge	42	(5)
The Old Order Topples: 1853--68	47	(10)
Japan's Sense of the World	49	(1)
Perry's Arrival	50	(1)
A Land in Transition	51	(1)
Symbols of Change	52	(2)
Tumultuous Times	54	(1)
Demise of a Domain Lord	55	(2)
Confronting the Modern World: 1868-89	57	(24)
Envisioning a New World	59	(8)
Creating a New System	67	(7)
A New Society	74	(7)
Turning Outward: 1890--1912	81	(26)
Rising Nationalism	83	(4)
An Expansionist Turn	87	(11)
A Modern, Urban Society	98	(9)
Imperial Democracy: 1912--30	107	(24)
The Energy of Modernity	109	(12)
Reining in Diversity	121	(10)
The Dark Era: 1930--45	131	(28)
The Militarist Turn	133	(14)
War	147	(12)
The Reemergence: 1945--70	159	(26)
An Occupied Land	161	(9)
The Return to Normal Life	170	(6)
The Reemergence	176	(9)
Japan as a World Power: After 1970	185	(27)
Surmounting Crises	187	(8)
Awash in Capital	195	(6)
As the Century Ended	201	(11)
Timeline	212	(2)
Further Reading and Websites	214	(2)
Text Credits	216	(3)
Picture Credits	219	(1)
Index	220