Modern Japan: A Very Short Introduction

Japan is arguably today's most successful industrial economy, combining almost unprecedented affluence with social stability and apparent harmony. Japanese goods and cultural products--from animated movies and computer games to cars, semiconductors, and management techniques--are consumed around the world. In many ways, Japan is an icon of the modern world, and yet it remains something of an enigma to many, who see it as a confusing montage of the alien and the familiar, the ancient and modern. This Very Short Introduction explodes the myths and explores the reality of modern Japan, offering a concise, engaging, and accessible look at the history, economy, politics, and culture of this fascinating nation. It examines what the term "modern" means to the Japanese, debunks the notion that Japan went through a period of total isolation from the world, and explores the continuity between pre- and post-war Japan. Anyone curious about this intriguing country will find a wealth of insight and information in these pages.

[...]... NORTH KOREA Aomori Morioka Akita Sea of Japan Sendai Yamagata Fukushima Pyongyang HONSHU Nagano Kanazawa ToyamaTokyo JAPAN Fukui Yokohama Yokosuka Tottori SOUTH Nagoya Kyoto KOREA Kobe Hiroshima Osaka Yamaguchi Kitakyushu Tokushima Kochi Sasebo Fukuoka SHIKOKU Kumamoto KYUSHU Nagasaki Kagoshima Pacific Ocean am i Is lan ds East China Sea Okinawa Am Modern Japan Seoul 0 Naha 50 Miles 2 Map of Japan 12 100... 200 SAKHALIN RUSSIA Ku ri t es Khabarovsk Ulan Bator MONGOLIA Sapporo Vladivostok HOKKAIDO JAPAN NORTH KOREA Beijing SOUTH KOREA PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SHIKOKU Fukuoka Nanjing KYUSHU East China Sea Shanghai Ogasawara Okinawa Guangzhou BURMA Hanoi TAIWAN Hong Kong LAOS Rangoon Vientiane THAILAND Bangkok Philippine Sea South China Sea Manila CAMBODIA VIETNAM Ho Chi Minh City Phnom Penh M A L Kuala Lumpur... to Modern Japan cannot hope to serve as an adequate general survey of this exciting and important period in Japan’s history Instead, it will consider a series of questions about what it means to call Japan a modern society and what this category of modern has meant to different groups of Japanese people at different times Along the way, it will challenge a number of common assumptions about Japanese... troubles, and despite the rapid rise of China, Japan remains the second largest economy on the planet according to most indicators, behind only the United States Japanese goods and cultural products are consumed all over the world, ranging from animated movies and Playstation games, to cars and semiconductors, to management techniques and the martial arts In many ways, this image of Japan makes it into an... discusses the various social and political reforms that were made at that time, with a particular focus on the ways in which Japanese society and culture sought to make sense of the new postwar reality, perhaps moving towards a postmodern identity SAKHALIN Soya Straft RUSSIA Kunashir (Kunashiri) Ku ril es Sea of Okhotsk Iturup (Etorofu) Shikotan CHINA Sapporo Vladivostok HOKKAIDO Hakodate Tsugaru Strait NORTH... M A L Kuala Lumpur A Y S PHILIPPINES I A Singapore Jakarta 0 I N 100 200 300 Miles 3 Map of East Asia 13 D O N E S I A Introduction: what’s modern about modern Japan? Senkaku Islands Taipei Sendai HONSHU Tokyo Kyoto Nagoya Osaka Seoul Chapter 1 Japan’s encounter with the modern world At first glance, the origins of modern Japan seem to coincide conveniently with the dramatic arrival of US Commodore... the rocket Modern Japan a football stadium (with a Brazilian player), some traditional Korean dancing, David Beckham, some more Korean dancing, another sumo wrestler, another temple, a lingering shot of a geisha (or gisaeng), and then a slow romantic shot of Mount Fuji At this point there is a sudden change of pace, as though we are being brought into the modern era: a Shinkansen bullet-train explodes... embrace modernity and its trappings Chapter 3 moves forward into the early 20th century and Japan’s emergence as a great imperial power in Asia, defeating China (1895) and Russia (1905), and then building a vast empire in the so-called Great East Asia War The chapter focuses particularly on the ways in which this imperial project was fuelled by (and opposed by) the development of modern industries and... Orientalism was rife; the romance of the ‘mystical East’ coloured most accounts Western accounts of Japan in the early 19th century portrayed it as a feudal kingdom, untouched by the hands of industry and modernity Most accounts also mentioned how favourably Japan compared to the other ‘barbarian peoples’ encountered by the European imperialists in Asia and Africa: the Japanese were apparently cultured, clean,... what were the actual characteristics of the Japan that Perry encountered in the 1850s, and was it really as pre -modern as he thought? The unification of Japan and the making of Pax Tokugawa Most of the institutions that characterized Japan in the mid-19th century were established at the start of the 17th century by the founders of the Tokugawa regime, after whom the period was named: Tokgugawa Ieyasu, . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h1" alt="" Modern Japan: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions available now: AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone AMERICAN. PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia ANTISEMITISM