Among the revolutionary movements which shook the nineteenth-century world, the change of government in Japan in 1868 occupies a special place. A new, dynamic ruling class provoked the overthrow of the old rule of the shogun and in a few years the visible structure of feudal society disappeared. The nature of this transformation has been regarded by western historians as "revolution" and "restoration" – two quite contradictory ideas. But in this book Paul Akamatsu clarifies the picture of the forces at work in this conversion of a backward feudal state into a modern power in a few decades.

To this day, Japan's modern ascendancy challenges many assumptions about world history, particularly theories regarding the rise of the west and why the modern world looks the way it does. In this engaging new history, Brett L. Walker tackles key themes regarding Japan's relationships with its minorities, state and economic development, and the uses of science and medicine. The book begins by tracing the country's early history through archaeological remains, before proceeding to explore life in the imperial court, the rise of the samurai, civil conflict, encounters with Europe, and the advent of modernity and empire. Integrating the pageantry of a unique nation's history with today's environmental concerns, Walker's vibrant and accessible new narrative then follows Japan's ascension from the ashes of World War II into the thriving nation of today. It is a history for our times, posing important questions regarding how we should situate a nation's history in an age of environmental and climatological uncertainties.

The history of Imperial Japan, from the Meiji Restoration through to defeat and occupation at the end of the Second World War, is central to any understanding of the way in which modern Japan has developed and will continue to develop in the future. This wide-ranging accessible and up-to-date interpretation of Japanese history between 1868 and 1945 provides both a narrative and analysis. Describing the major changes that took place in Japanese political, economic and social life during this period, it challenges widely-held views about the uniqueness of Japanese history and the homogeneity of Japanese society.

Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Restoration, 1868-2000 explores, through a combination of narrative and analysis, the changes in the political process which lay behind Japan's transformation into a modern nation state; its successive turn toward militarism, fascism, and the Pacific War; and the imposition of a fully democratic constitution. Sims examines closely such central topics as the Meiji renovation, samurai modernisers, the rise of liberal political parties, the Meiji constitution, 'Taisho democracy', the wartime changes in the political system, postwar reforms and the 'reverse course', four decades of Liberal Democratic rule, and the shake-up of Japanese politics during the 1990s. No other book has covered Japanese political history over the entire period since 1868 in such detail, and the present volume aims to fill the gap between the various general histories of modern Japan and the ever-increasing monographic literature.

During the brief Meiji period, Japan underwent am astonishing metamorphosis from feudal state to modern industrial and military power. The national policy of isolationism, sakoku, initiated in 1639, was abruptly challenged in 1853 when Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay with four awe-inspiring iron vessels, locally known as "black ships." Forced into trade treaties, the Japanese state rushed to modernize under the enlightened leadership of Emperor Meiji.The popular woodblock prints of the Meiji period were snapshots of a modern society in the making. Those reproduced in Japan Awakens, all from the collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, show everything from political events and wars to intimate domestic scenes. Three thematic essays by Barry Till trace the links between the revival of imperial rule and forces both national and international, connecting formal and aesthetic changes in fine-art prints to these events.

Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) has been, with the exception of writings on modern and contemporary woodblock prints, a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In recent years, however, the subject has begun to attract wide interest. As is evident from this volume, this period of roughly a century and a half produced an outpouring of art created in a bewildering number of genres and spanning a wide range of aims and accomplishments. Since Meiji is the first sustained effort in English to discuss in any depth a time when Japan, eager to join in the larger cultural developments in Europe and the U.S., went through a visual revolution. Indeed, this study of the visual arts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests a fresh history of modern Japanese culture--one that until now has not been widely visible or thoroughly analyzed outside that country. In this extensive collection, which includes some 190 black-and-white and color reproductions, scholars from Japan, Europe, Australia, and America explore an impressive array of subjects: painting, sculpture, prints, fashion design, crafts, and gardens. The works discussed range from early Meiji attempts to create art that referenced Western styles to postwar and contemporary avant-garde experiments. There are, in addition, substantive investigations of the cultural and intellectual background that helped stimulate the creation of new and shifting art forms, including essays on the invention of a modern artistic vocabulary in the Japanese language and the history of art criticism in Japan, as well as an extensive account of the career and significance of perhaps the best-known Japanese figure concerned with the visual arts of his period, Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913), whose Book of Tea is still widely read today. Taken together, the essays in this volume allow readers to connect ideas and images, thus bringing to light larger trends in the Japanese visual arts that have made possible the vitality, range, and striking achievements created during this turbulent and lively period.

This volume examines the Meiji Restoration through a global history lens to re-interpret the formation of a globally-cast, Japanese nation-state.