num_pages: 936
description: Magisterial in vision, sweeping in scope, this monumental work presents a seamless account of Japanese society during the modern era, from 1600 to the present. A distillation of more than fifty years' engagement with Japan and its history, it is the crowning work of our leading interpreter of the modern Japanese experience. Since 1600 Japan has undergone three periods of wrenching social and institutional change, following the imposition of hegemonic order on feudal society by the Tokugawa shogun; the opening of Japan's ports by Commodore Perry; and defeat in World War II. The Making of Modern Japan charts these the social engineering begun with the founding of the shogunate in 1600, the emergence of village and castle towns with consumer populations, and the diffusion of samurai values in the culture. Jansen covers the making of the modern state, the adaptation of Western models, growing international trade, the broadening opportunity in Japanese society with industrialization, and the postwar occupation reforms imposed by General MacArthur. Throughout, the book gives voice to the individuals and views that have shaped the actions and beliefs of the Japanese, with writers, artists, and thinkers, as well as political leaders given their due. The story this book tells, though marked by profound changes, is also one of remarkable consistency, in which continuities outweigh upheavals in the development of society, and successive waves of outside influence have only served to strengthen a sense of what is unique and native to Japanese experience. The Making of Modern Japan takes us to the core of this experience as it illuminates one of the contemporary world's most compelling transformations.
language: English
title: The Making of Modern Japan
titlecomplete: The Making of Modern Japan
characters: Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Matsukata Masayoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Iwakura Tomomi, Kido Takayoshi, Hirohito, Kijūrō Shidehara, Tanaka Giichi, Katō Takaaki, Itō Hirobumi, Katsura Tarō, Hideki Tojo, Saionji Kinmochi, Douglas MacArthur, Itagaki Taisuke, Saigō Takamori, Arai Hakuseki, Hara Takashi, Emperor Kōmei, Motoori Norinaga, Mori Arinori, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Inoue Kaoru, Fumimaro Konoe, Matthew C. Perry, Ogyū Sorai, Ōkuma Shigenobu
genres: Cultural, 21st Century, Politics, History, Japanese Literature, Nonfiction, Asia, Japanese History, Historical, Japan
ratings_count: 536
publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press