The Cambridge History of Japan [Hardcover]

This volume covers the end of feudal society and the shogunate in Japan, and the growing power of the emperor.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.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.This volume in The Cambridge History of Japan provides the most comprehensive account available in any Western language of Japan's transformation from a feudal society to a modern nation state. Volume 5 traces the roots and the course of political, social, and institutional change that took place in Japan from late Tokugawa times to the early twentieth century. The interrelated collection of authoritative and analytical essays by specialists in the history of nineteenth century Japan discuss the fissures in late feudal society, the impact of and response to the Western world, 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.Introduction Marius B. Jansen; 1. Japan in the early nineteenth century Marius B. Jansen; 2. The Tempo crisis Harold Bolitho; 3. Late Tokugawa culture and thought H. D. Harootunian; 4. The foreign threlƒ*