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To Stand with the Nations of the World - Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History (Hardcover)
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To Stand with the Nations of the World - Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History (Hardcover)
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The samurai radicals who overthrew the last shogun in 1868 promised
to restore ancient and pure Japanese ways. Foreign observers were
terrified that Japan would lapse into violent xenophobia. But the
new Meiji government took an opposite course. It copied "best
practice" from around the world, building a powerful and modern
Japanese nation with the help of European and American advisors.
While revering the Japanese past, the Meiji government boldly
embraced the foreign and the new. What explains this paradox? How
could Japan's 1868 revolution be both modern and traditional, both
xenophobic and cosmopolitan? To Stand with the Nations of the World
explains the paradox of the Restoration through the forces of
globalization. Japan's leaders wanted to celebrate Japanese
uniqueness, but they also sought international recognition. Rather
than simply mimic world powers like Britain, they sought to make
Japan distinctly Japanese in the same way that Britain was
distinctly British. Rather than sing "God Save the King," they
created a Japanese national anthem with lyrics from ancient poetry,
but Western-style music. The Meiji Restoration was thus part of the
global "long nineteenth century" during which ambitious nation
states like Japan, Britain, Germany, and the United States
challenged the world's great multi-ethnic empires - Ottoman, Qing,
Romanov, and Hapsburg. The Restoration also resonated with Japan's
ancient past. In the 600s and 700s, Japan was threatened by the
Tang dynasty, as powerful as the Roman empire. In order to resist
the Tang, Japanese leaders borrowed Tang methods, building a
centralized Japanese state on Tang models, and learning continental
science and technology. As in the 1800s, Japan coopted
international norms while insisting on Japanese distinctiveness.
When confronting globalization in 1800s, Japan looked back to that
"ancient globalization" of the 600s and 700s. The ancient past was,
therefore, not remote or distant, but immediate and vital.
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