In world history, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 ranks as a revolutionary watershed, on a par with the American and French Revolutions. In this volume, leading historians from North America, Europe, and Japan employ global history in novel ways to offer fresh economic, social, political, cultural, and military perspectives on the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent creation of the modern Japanese nation-state. Seamlessly mixing meta- and micro-history, the authors examine how the Japanese state and Japanese people engaged with global trends of the early nineteenth century. They also explore the internal military conflicts that marked the 1860s and the process of reconciliation after 1868. They conclude with discussions of how new political, cultural, and diplomatic institutions were created as Japan emerged as a global nation, defined in multiple ways by its place in the world.
Author(s): Robert Hellyer, Harald Fuess
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 300
City: Cambridge
Contents
Figures
Tables
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Notes on Conventions
Introduction
Part 1 Global Connections
1 Japan and the World Conjuncture of 1866
2 Western Whalers in 1860s’ Hakodate How the Nantucket of the North Pacific Connected Restoration Era Japan to Global Flows
3 Small Town, Big Dreams A Yokohama Merchant and the Transformation of Japan
4 The Global Weapons Trade and the Meiji Restoration Dispersion of Means of Violence in a World of Emerging Nation-States
Part 2 Internal Conflicts
5 Mountain Demons from Mito: The Arrival of Civil War in Echizen in 1864
6 “Farmer-Soldiers” and Local Leadership in Late Edo Period Japan
7 A Military History of the Boshin War
8 Imai Nobuo A Tokugawa Stalwart’s Path from the Boshin War to Personal Reinvention in the Meiji Nation-State
Part 3 Domestic Resolutions
9 Settling the Frontier, Defending the North “Farmer-Soldiers” in Hokkaido’s Colonial Development and National Reconciliation St
10 Locally Ancient and Globally Modern Restoration Discourse and the Tensions of Modernity
11 Ornamental Diplomacy Emperor Meiji and the Monarchs of the Modern World
12 The Restoration of the Ancient Capitals of Nara and Kyoto and International Cultural Legitimacy in Meiji Japan
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
