The product of research by US and Japanese scholars, this book is an assessment of the work of individual "yatoi", and their contributions to the rapid development that characterized Meiji Japan (1868-1912).

This volume of essays by Japanese and Western scholars sheds light on the process of modernization in nineteenth-century Japan, focusing on two significant aspects of Japan's .transition to a modern society: the decision to live for a time with the necessary evil of relying on the skill and advice of foreign employees (oyatio gaikokujin) and the decision to dispatch Japanese students overseas (Pyugakusei). The. essays make clear that the success of both these programs went beyond aiding Japan's modernization goals; their indirect effects often extended much further than planned, influencing even today the fields of education, science, and history and affecting other countries' knowledge about Japan

Explores the interactions of 19th century American merchants with the Japanese in the treaty port system, how the Japanese leadership manipulated them, and how the merchants themselves defined the limitations of American business in Japan.

The complex and coherent development of Japanese art during the course of the nineteenth century was inadvertently disrupted by a political event: the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Scholars of both the preceding Edo (1615–1868) and the succeeding Meiji (1868–1912) eras have shunned the decades bordering this arbitrary divide, thus creating an art-historical void that the former view as a period of waning technical and creative inventiveness and the latter as one threatened by Meiji reforms and indiscriminate westernization and modernization. Challenging Past and Present, to the contrary, demonstrates that the period 1840–1890, as seen progressively rather than retrospectively, experienced a dramatic transformation in the visual arts, which in turn made possible the creative achievements of the twentieth century. The first group of chapters takes as its theme the diverse cultural currents of the transitional period, particularly as they applied to art.The second section deals with the inconsistent yet determinedly pragmatic courses pursed by artists, entrepreneurs, and patrons to achieve a secure footing in the uncertain terrain of early Meiji. Further chapters look at how painters and sculptors sought to absorb and integrate foreign influences and reinterpret their own stylistic mediums.

An analysis of the phenomenon of the Japanese adopting Western technology but resisting foreign domination during Meiji Japan. It is a fascinating study on the founding of the Japanese Imperial Mint, the role of its director Thomas William Kinder, the Meiji government's effort to adopt technology, but at the same time its struggle to maintain its authority at the Mint.

Anglo-Japanese and American-Japanese connections in chemistry had a major impact on the institutionalization of scientific and technological higher education in Japan from the late nineteenth century and onwards. They helped define the structure of Japanese scientific pedagogical and research system that lasted well into the post-World World II period of massive technological development, when it became one of the biggest providers of chemists and chemical engineers in the world next to Europe and the United States. In telling this story, Anglo-American Connections in Japanese Chemistry explores various sites of science education such as teaching laboratories and classrooms - where British and American teachers mingled with Japanese students - to shed new light on the lab as a site of global human encounter and intricate social relations that shaped scientific practice.

The Western discovery of Japanese paintings at nineteenth-century world’s fairs and export shops catapulted Japanese art to new levels of international popularity. With that popularity, however, came criticism, as Western writers began to lament a perceived end to pure Japanese art and a rise in westernized cultural hybrids. The Japanese response: nihonga, a traditional style of painting that reframed existing techniques to distinguish them from Western artistic conventions. Making Modern Japanese-Style Painting explores the visual characteristics and social functions of nihonga and traces its relationship to the past, its viewers, and emerging notions of the modern Japanese state. Chelsea Foxwell sheds light on interlinked trends in Japanese nationalist discourse, government art policy, American and European commentary on Japanese art, and the demands of export. The seminal artist Kano Hogai (1828–88) is one telling example: originally a painter for the shogun, his art eventually evolved into novel, eerie images meant to satisfy both Japanese and Western audiences. Rather than simply absorbing Western approaches, nihonga as practiced by Hogai and others broke with pre-Meiji painting even as it worked to neutralize the rupture. By arguing that fundamental changes to audience expectations led to the emergence of nihonga—a traditional interpretation of Japanese art for a contemporary, international market—Making Modern Japanese-Style Painting offers a fresh look at an important aspect of Japan’s development into a modern nation.