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The Cambridge History of Japan Vol. 5: The Nineteenth Century

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The Nineteenth Century

Series The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 5

Edited by Marius B. Jansen

Publication Date 1989

Hardback ISBN-13
9780521223560

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) 10.1017/CHOL9780521223560

Overview

The Nineteenth Century provides the most comprehensive account available in any Western language of Japan's transformation from a feudal society to a modern nation state. This volume 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. It was an era remarkable for sweeping changes undertaken in the name of tradition, symbolized by the shift of authority from the shogun as military hegemon to the emperor who professed to cloak his sacrosanct prerogatives in constitutional procedures. 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. All of the chapters are based on current research and were writeen for students and scholars as well as for general readers who do not have a specialized knowledge of Japanese history.

For more details of the
print book, and how to buy it online, please see
The Nineteenth Century in the Cambridge University Press online
catalogue.

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Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Introduction
by
Marius B. Jansen

Japan in the early nineteenth century
by
Marius B. Jansen

The Tempō crisis
by
Harold Bolitho

Late Tokugawa culture and thought
by
H. D. Harootunian

The foreign threat and the opening of the ports
by
W. G. Beasley

The Meiji Restoration
by
Marius B. Jansen

Opposition movements in early Meiji, 1868–1885
by
Stephen Vlastos

Japan's turn to the west
by
Hirakawa Sukehiro

Social change
by
Gilbert Rozman

Economic change in the nineteenth century
by
E. Sydney Crawcour

Meiji political institutions
by
W. G. Beasley

Meiji conservatism
by
Kenneth B. Pyle

Japan's drive to great-power status
by
Akira Iriye

Works Cited

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