Japan Historiography

Benson and Matsumura: criticism of the shogun developed eventually into a coherent – and near revolutionary – programme which involved overthrowing the shogun’s regime and replacing it with a government headed by the emperor, around whom a renewed sense of national unity would be developed.

Hunter: argues that the Meiji Constitution did not create a unified nation under an absolute emperor, nor a parliamentary democracy, but a series of major groupings, each of which could utilise the imperial position to impose its policies on the rest of the population.

Buruma: challenges the idea that any sense of national unity came from political reform. National unity was armed unity. National education was military education. The samurai virtues were now applied nationally. Loyalty and obedience to the emperor, who was paraded around the country in military uniform, was the highest form of patriotism.

Hunter: believes that the acts of political centralisation carried out after 1868 were aimed at building a united nation capable of withstanding the western threat. For that purpose it was imperative that the fragmentation and divisions of the Bakufu era be replaced by a substantive unity, at least in the face presented to the outside world.

Hane: cites that the new political leaders were confronted with formidable tasks. They had to end Tokugawa feudal order and establish a tightly controlled centralised government.

Storry: contends that the progress of education moulded the people into a nation of patriots…The government needed literate soldiers, factory workers, business employees and government employees to achieve its goal of enriching the nation and challenging the Unequal Treaties.

Hane: suggests that the children were taught they owed three great obligations, to their emperor, to their parents and to their teachers.

Beasley: argues the Rescript was condemning the indiscriminate emulation of western ways.

Hunter: believes the prime objective of the (education) structure was the needs of the state and its main goals were the provision of skills and patriotic morality among the many to produce a literate and pliable workforce.

Benson and Matsumara: summarises education it is said has been the chief tool in shaping national identity.

Hunter: to advance Japan had to learn from the West and drop at least some of her former respect for China.

Hunter: contends that as Japan’s strength grew, so did her ambitions on the Asian mainland and her ability to advance them

Hunter: with reference to the Treaty of Shimonoseki A formal acknowledgement of the independence of Korea signified the end of Chinese domination there.

Harris: suggests that extending Japanese power and influence on the continent of Asia was part of a larger vision.

Gordon: suggests that The outcome of the Sino-Japanese had a huge impact around the world and in Japan. The Western powers and their publics had expected the Chinese to prevail… Japan in western eyes came out of the war with vastly increased prestige. 

McClain: highlights Few foreign observers expected the island nation to prevail over the continental giant…in 1895 the Chinese delegates had to travel to Japan, a clear sign that the Japanese oligarch (Ito) held the better cards.

Waswo: states that conditions in Japan most closely resembled those of high feudalism in Europe.

Hane: is of the belief that in order to ensure political control and social stability the Tokugawa Bakufu set out to fix a rigid class system.

Hunter: states that a rigid hierarchy of hereditary caste continued to prevail both in theory and to a large extent in practice.

Storry: highlights the blurring of caste divisions that were occurring by the mid nineteenth century. The whole regime had been under indirect attack for many quarters inside Japan long before 1850.

Gordon: The Russians came to rival the Japanese position on Korea. They challenged it in Manchuria as well as by seizing the leasehold for the tip of the Liaodong peninsula in 1898.

Benson & Matsumara: contends that the European powers’ growing interest in Asia could scarcely be overlooked and this encouraged Japan’s development of a more aggressive foreign policy.

B B Oh: argues that for Japan, imperialism was a means of attaining equality with the west.

Barnhart: highlights the importance of the 1902 Alliance with Britain in encouraging the Japanese to adopt a firmer line with Russia Japan had obtained recognition – in treaty form no less – of its own great power status in an alliance between equals with one of the greatest nations of Europe.

Buruma: argues that the Russo-Japanese war was the high point of Meiji militarism. Japan had been feeling bruised after the western powers had forced them to hand over some of their victory spoils in 1895, including the southern tip of Liaotung peninsula in Manchuria, which was then leased to Russia

Storry: argues that The Tokugawa system might have continued essentially unchanged had it not been for the forcible opening of the closed door.

Hunter: states that the dynamic forces within society and in the economy eventually came into conflict with a national polity which sought to avoid change.

Huber: argues that it was Perry’s arrival which finally made it possible for serious reformers in Choshu and elsewhere to convert their theoretical understanding into an urgent demand for change.

Andrew Gordon: Taking this step (abolishing the Samurai caste) was a major undertaking. It took nearly a decade and enraged many former Samurai. In particular, many of those who had supported the restoration drive felt betrayed by their former comrades now running the Meiji government.

E Tipton ‘While limiting contact with Europe, Japan thus maintained active relations with other East Asian countries, so that the image of a closed country should not be overdrawn.’

Kornicki ‘It is common place to assert that it was Commodore Perry who was responsible for opening Japan in 1853-4, but this is misleading…Japan was never completely closed, owing to the Dutch presence in Nagasaki and the active trade conducted by Japan with China and Korea.’

Buruma ‘Perry’s assumption of Japanese ignorance (in 1853) could not have been further from the truth. At the time of his arrival in Edo bay, the Japanese knew more about America than the Americans knew about Japan.’

Totman ‘The most important aspect of early Meiji growth was expansion of industrial production, which permitted both population growth and the deployment of more social resources to other tasks.’

Moore ‘Between Meiji Restoration and the First World War Japanese agriculture made what can be legitimately regarded as a successful adaptation to meet the economic requirements of a modern industrial society.’

Hane ‘The industry that developed rapidly from the early Meiji years and remained a key component of the economy was textile manufacture.’

Pyle ‘The most noteworthy change in the political system was the growth in power and influence of the parties.’

Buruma ‘Japanese democracy was a sickly child from the beginning’. ‘Constitution was a vaguely worded document that put sovereignty into imperial hands.’

Benson & Matsumura ‘This was no western-style liberal democracy. As Article 3 of the Constitution implied, the basic aim of those drawing up the Meiji Constitution was to retain theoretically absolute (if symbolic) sovereign power in the hands of the emperor, and actual political power in the hands of the ruling elite who acted as his advisors.’

Pyle ‘The outbreak of WW1 in Europe in the summer of 1914 provided extraordinary opportunities to advance the twin objectives of empire and industry.’

Benson and Matsumura ‘The rejection by the Powers of Japanese proposals for the inclusion of a racial equality clause in the Versailles Settlement heightened the grievance of the Japanese towards the unequal treatment to which the coloured races were subjected by Western peoples.’

Berry ‘The Tokugawa shogunate was not conspicuous in public life. The Bakufu created no judiciary, assembled no bureaucracy, and opened no public treasury. It capitalised on medieval forms of attachment.’

Hane ‘In order to ensure political and social stability the Tokugawa Bakufu set out a rigid class system.’

Hane ‘Economic difficulties that the Bakufu and Daimyo domains were experiencing weakened that feudal order and caused discontent among the lower level Samurai and commoners.’

Tipton ‘The government’s attempt to define Japan and Japaneseness with the imperial institution at its core may be seen in the shift in education policy which took place in the late 1880s.’

Jansen ‘Mori was concerned with the role of education in nation building, and with the primacy of the state over personal interests. Education was not only for the pupils, but for the state of the country.’

Duus ‘The Russo-Japanese war rather than the Sino-Japanese War marked the take-off point of Japanese imperialism.’

Benson & Matsumara ‘Nonetheless, the failure to secure still better terms – and especially better financial compensation – in the Treaty of Portsmouth led to a great deal of domestic criticism, two days of unprecedented rioting in Tokyo, and the resignation of prime minister Katsura.’

Benson & Matsumara ‘Nonetheless, the failure to secure still better terms – and especially better financial compensation – in the Treaty of Portsmouth led to a great deal of domestic criticism, two days of unprecedented rioting in Tokyo, and the resignation of prime minister Katsura.’

Benson & Matsumara ‘Nonetheless, the failure to secure still better terms – and especially better financial compensation – in the Treaty of Portsmouth led to a great deal of domestic criticism, two days of unprecedented rioting in Tokyo, and the resignation of prime minister Katsura.’

Jansen: „a vigorous anti-Confucian and anti-Chinese polemic was mounted by a new school of Nativist scholars.‟

Waswo: „Neo-Confucianism stressed the ethical nature of government, stressing obedience to one‟s superiors.‟

R. Storry: „The undoubted fact that the whole regime had been under indirect attack from many quarters inside Japan long before Perry arrived.‟

J. Hunter: „The dynamic forces within society and in the economy eventually came into conflict with a national polity which sought to avoid change.‟

R. Wall: „Arrival of Perry in July 1856 brought the whole complicated debate to a head.‟

S. Wood: „Western activity was to be critically evaluated and shaped to suit Japan.‟

Buruma: „They recognised the power of western ideas and wished to learn more, so Japan could one day compete with the best of them.‟

Hane: „Modernisation would depend heavily upon the adoption of western science, technology and industrialisation.‟

Beasley: „The classic description of Tokugawa society is one of fixed stratification: a descending hierarchy…In reality this is misleading. Overwhelming the most important distinction was that between samurai and the rest.‟

Jansen: „a modenising elite had emerged; the power lay with this oligarchy.‟ „Restoration leaders kept the court at the centre of national identity and that emphasis diffused amidst the population as a means of control.‟

Beasley: „The Emperor‟s importance as a source of legitimacy for the Meiji leadership has never been in doubt.‟ To the Meiji leaders he was „useful as a symbol and occasionally as a weapon of last resort.‟

Hunter: „By 1919 Japan had secured for herself a formal position as one of the world‟s most powerful nations.‟

Wall: After the acquisition of Korea, „Japan at one and the same time obtained the status of a great power and began a policy of imperialism.‟