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Author: Stefan Tanaka
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400826241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
New Times in Modern Japan concerns the transformation of time--the reckoning of time--during Japan's Meiji period, specifically from around 1870 to 1900. Time literally changed as the archipelago synchronized with the Western imperialists' reckoning of time. The solar calendar and clock became standard timekeeping devices, and society adapted to the abstractions inherent in modern notions of time. This set off a cascade of changes that completely reconfigured how humans interacted with each other and with their environment--a process whose analysis carries implications for other non-Western societies as well. By examining topics ranging from geology, ghosts, childhood, art history, and architecture to nature as a whole, Stefan Tanaka explores how changing conceptions of time destabilized inherited knowledge and practices and ultimately facilitated the reconfiguration of the archipelago's heterogeneous communities into the liberal-capitalist nation-state, Japan. However, this revolutionary transformation--where, in the words of Lewis Mumford, "the clock, not the steam engine," is the key mechanism of the industrial age--has received little more than a footnote in the history of Japan. This book's innovative focus on time not only shifts attention away from debates about the failure (or success) of "modernization" toward how individuals interact with the overlay of abstract concepts upon their lives; it also illuminates the roles of history as discourse and as practice in this reconfiguration of society. In doing so, it will influence discussions about modernity well beyond the borders of Japan.
Author: Stefan Tanaka
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400826241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Get Book
Book Description
New Times in Modern Japan concerns the transformation of time--the reckoning of time--during Japan's Meiji period, specifically from around 1870 to 1900. Time literally changed as the archipelago synchronized with the Western imperialists' reckoning of time. The solar calendar and clock became standard timekeeping devices, and society adapted to the abstractions inherent in modern notions of time. This set off a cascade of changes that completely reconfigured how humans interacted with each other and with their environment--a process whose analysis carries implications for other non-Western societies as well. By examining topics ranging from geology, ghosts, childhood, art history, and architecture to nature as a whole, Stefan Tanaka explores how changing conceptions of time destabilized inherited knowledge and practices and ultimately facilitated the reconfiguration of the archipelago's heterogeneous communities into the liberal-capitalist nation-state, Japan. However, this revolutionary transformation--where, in the words of Lewis Mumford, "the clock, not the steam engine," is the key mechanism of the industrial age--has received little more than a footnote in the history of Japan. This book's innovative focus on time not only shifts attention away from debates about the failure (or success) of "modernization" toward how individuals interact with the overlay of abstract concepts upon their lives; it also illuminates the roles of history as discourse and as practice in this reconfiguration of society. In doing so, it will influence discussions about modernity well beyond the borders of Japan.
Author: Marius B. Jansen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 933
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Book 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 changes: 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. Marius 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.
Author: Elise K. Tipton
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415185387
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Ranging from the Tokugwa period to the present day, this text provides a concise and fascinating introduction to the social, cultural and political history of modern Japan. Tipton covers political and economic developments and shows how they relate to social themes and developments. Her survey covers traditional political history as well as areas growing in interest: gender issues, labor conditions and ethnic minorities.
Author: Martin Dusinberre
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824861124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Hard Times in the Hometown tells the story of Kaminoseki, a small town on Japan’s Inland Sea. Once one of the most prosperous ports in the country, Kaminoseki fell into profound economic decline following Japan’s reengagement with the West in the late nineteenth century. Using a recently discovered archive and oral histories collected during his years of research in Kaminoseki, Martin Dusinberre reconstructs the lives of households and townspeople as they tried to make sense of their changing place in the world. In challenging the familiar story of modern Japanese growth, Dusinberre provides important new insights into how ordinary people shaped the development of the modern state. Chapters describe the role of local revolutionaries in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ways townspeople grasped opportunities to work overseas in the late nineteenth century, and the impact this pan-Pacific diaspora community had on Kaminoseki during the prewar decades. These histories amplify Dusinberre’s analysis of postwar rural decline—a phenomenon found not only in Japan but throughout the industrialized Western world. His account comes to a climax when, in the 1980s, the town’s councillors request the construction of a nuclear power station, unleashing a storm of protests from within the community. This ongoing nuclear dispute has particular resonance in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis. Hard Times in the Hometown gives voice to personal histories otherwise lost in abandoned archives. By bringing to life the everyday landscape of Kaminoseki, this work offers readers a compelling story through which to better understand not only nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan but also modern transformations more generally.
Author: Conrad Totman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520203569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
This thoughtfully organized survey of Japan's early modern period (1568-1868) is a remarkable blend of political, economic, intellectual, literary, and cultural history. The only truly comprehensive study in English of the Tokugawa period, it also introduces a new ecological perspective, covering natural disasters, resource use, demographics, and river control.
Author: James L. Huffman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195392524
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Employing a wide range of primary source materials, this book provides a colourful narrative of Japan's development since 1600. A variety of diary entries, letters, legal documents, and poems brings to life the early modern years, when Japan largely shut itself off from the outside world.
Author: James L. McClain
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393041569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 760
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Book Description
Japan: A Modern History provides a comprehensive narrative that integrates the political, social, cultural, and economic history of modern Japan from the investiture of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 to the present.
Author: Janet Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317870859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
The main emphasis of this book is upon political, social and economic developments, as conditioned by Japan's interaction with the outside world, the advance of industrialisation and the emergence of the Japanese nation state. Unlike previous textbooks on the history of modern Japan, Janet Hunter's book adopts a thematic approach which makes the period much more accessible for readers who wish to pursue their particular interests throughout the period. Moreover, it will also establish a greater awareness of the cultural and institutional continuities which are crucial to any proper understanding of modern Japan.
Author: Christopher Harding
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462922511
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 516
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Book Description
"Lucid and lyrical…a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernization." --The Daily Telegraph In A History of Modern Japan, cultural historian Christopher Harding delves into the untold stories of Japan's recent history--from a pop star's nuclear power protest song in 2011, to Japanese feminists who fought for an equal political voice in the 1890s. Though highly successful, and typically portrayed as a unified effort, Japan's rebuilding throughout the 20th century faced a lot of domestic criticism. This story-led account gives a voice to those who felt they didn't fit in with what Japan was becoming. It's that push and pull that made the country what it is today. This book will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in Japanese culture--whether film and literature, or pop culture and manga--as big shifts in Japanese ideology and society tend to come from culture and the arts, rather than being politically-driven. It will also be of interest to those traveling to Japan who want a better sense of the place, or anyone seeking to better understand Japan's role on the global stage. With over 100 photographs, maps and prints, A History of Modern Japan showcases the compelling story of Japan's amazing growth and its resulting struggles. For all the country's advancement, the Japanese people continue to wrestle with the notion of what it means to be Japanese in a changing world.
Author: Herbert P. Bix
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061860476
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 832
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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority. Supported by a vast array of previously untapped primary documents, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is perhaps most illuminating in lifting the veil on the mythology surrounding the emperor's impact on the world stage. Focusing closely on Hirohito's interactions with his advisers and successive Japanese governments, Bix sheds new light on the causes of the China War in 1937 and the start of the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. And while conventional wisdom has had it that the nation's increasing foreign aggression was driven and maintained not by the emperor but by an elite group of Japanese militarists, the reality, as witnessed here, is quite different. Bix documents in detail the strong, decisive role Hirohito played in wartime operations, from the takeover of Manchuria in 1931 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and ultimately the fateful decision in 1945 to accede to an unconditional surrender. In fact, the emperor stubbornly prolonged the war effort and then used the horrifying bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the Soviet entrance into the war, as his exit strategy from a no-win situation. From the moment of capitulation, we see how American and Japanese leaders moved to justify the retention of Hirohito as emperor by whitewashing his wartime role and reshaping the historical consciousness of the Japanese people. The key to this strategy was Hirohito's alliance with General MacArthur, who helped him maintain his stature and shed his militaristic image, while MacArthur used the emperor as a figurehead to assist him in converting Japan into a peaceful nation. Their partnership ensured that the emperor's image would loom large over the postwar years and later decades, as Japan began to make its way in the modern age and struggled -- as it still does -- to come to terms with its past. Until the very end of a career that embodied the conflicting aims of Japan's development as a nation, Hirohito remained preoccupied with politics and with his place in history. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan provides the definitive account of his rich life and legacy. Meticulously researched and utterly engaging, this book is proof that the history of twentieth-century Japan cannot be understood apart from the life of its most remarkable and enduring leader.
