The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe

The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe PDF Author: Ian Nish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135318794
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Driven by the need to identify, classify and assess western technology and culture together with a desire to advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called 'unequal treaties' - the new Meiji government of 1868 despatched a top-level ministerial team to the west which, in 1872, arrived in the United States. In all, they spent 205 days in America, 122 days in Britain and two months in France, as well as visiting other countries including Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy. Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies, held in Budapest in August 1997 (the year also marking the 125th anniversary of Iwakura's arrival), this volume presents a valuable new overview of the mission as a whole, with the significance and impact of the visit to each country being separately assessed. A supplement to the book looks at several 'post-Iwakura' topics, including a review of the mission's chief chronicler, Kume Kunitake.

The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe

The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe PDF Author: Ian Nish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135318808
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Examines the top ministerial team sent in 1872 by the new Meiji government to the West in order to idenitify, classify and assess Western technology and culture, and to open a dialogue to review the so-called 'unequal treaties'.

Japan Rising

Japan Rising PDF Author: Kunitake Kume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
In 1871 Japan sent a delegation to the USA and Europe. This book is an abridged report of this journey.

Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back

Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back PDF Author: Janice P. Nimura
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248240
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of the Year "Nimura paints history in cinematic strokes and brings a forgotten story to vivid, unforgettable life." —Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha In 1871, five young girls were sent by the Japanese government to the United States. Their mission: learn Western ways and return to help nurture a new generation of enlightened men to lead Japan. Raised in traditional samurai households during the turmoil of civil war, three of these unusual ambassadors—Sutematsu Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda—grew up as typical American schoolgirls. Upon their arrival in San Francisco they became celebrities, their travels and traditional clothing exclaimed over by newspapers across the nation. As they learned English and Western customs, their American friends grew to love them for their high spirits and intellectual brilliance. The passionate relationships they formed reveal an intimate world of cross-cultural fascination and connection. Ten years later, they returned to Japan—a land grown foreign to them—determined to revolutionize women’s education. Based on in-depth archival research in Japan and in the United States, including decades of letters from between the three women and their American host families, Daughters of the Samurai is beautifully, cinematically written, a fascinating lens through which to view an extraordinary historical moment.

Japan Encounters the Barbarian

Japan Encounters the Barbarian PDF Author: Emeritus Professor W G Beasley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300063240
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
For over a hundred years the Japanese have looked to the West for ideas, institutions and technology that would help them achieve their goal of 'national wealth and strength'. In this book a distinguished historian of Japan discusses Japan's 'cultural borrowing' from America and Europe. W. G. Beasley focuses on the mid-nineteenth century, when Japan's rulers dispatched diplomatic missions to the West to discover what Japan needed to learn, sent students abroad to assimilate information and invited foreign experts to Japan to help put the knowledge to practical use. Beasley examines the origins of the decision to initiate direct study of the West at a time when western countries counted as 'barbarian' by Confucian standards. Drawing on many colourful letters, diaries, memoirs and reports, he describes the missions sent overseas in 1860 and 1862, in 1865-1867 and in the years after 1868, in particular the prestigious embassy led by Iwakura in 1871-1873. The book also tells the story of the several hundred students who went overseas in this period. It concludes by assessing the impact of the encounters on the subsequent development of Japan, first by examining the later careers of the travellers and the influence they exercised (they included no fewer than six prime ministers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), and then by considering the nature of the ideas they brought home.

Japanese Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period

Japanese Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period PDF Author: Ian Nish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313011931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He explains British and American policies in the region as reactive, but concludes that their responses helped to determine which factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the events leading to the Second World War. While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the international path, there were others who tended to side with the army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan joined her allies in making war on the United States and the colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and, with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.

The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism

The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism PDF Author: Sidney Xu Lu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108482422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Shows how Japanese anxiety about overpopulation was used to justify expansion, blurring lines between migration and settler colonialism. This title is also available as Open Access.

European Elites and Ideas of Empire, 1917-1957

European Elites and Ideas of Empire, 1917-1957 PDF Author: Dina Gusejnova
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107120624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Explores European civilisation as a concept of twentieth-century political practice and the project of a transnational network of European elites. This title is available as Open Access.

A History of Russo-Japanese Relations

A History of Russo-Japanese Relations PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004400850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 659

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Book Description
This publication is the result of a three-year research project between eminent Russian and Japanese historians. It offers an an in-depth analysis of the history of relations between Russia and Japan from the 18th century until the present day. The format of the publication as a parallel history presents views and interpretations from Russian and Japanese perspectives that showcase the differences and the similarities in their joint history. The fourteen core sections, organized along chronological lines, provide assessments on the complex and sensitive issues of bilateral Russo-Japanese relations, including the territory problem as well as economic exchange.

A Career of Japan

A Career of Japan PDF Author: Luke Gartlan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004300805
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
A Career of Japan is the first study of one of the major photographers and personalities of nineteenth-century Japan. Baron Raimund von Stillfried was the most important foreign-born photographer of the Meiji era and one of the first globally active photographers of his generation. Based on extensive new primary sources and unpublished documents from archives around the world, this book examines von Stillfried’s significance as a cultural mediator between Japan and Central Europe. Awarded the 2nd Professor Josef Kreiner Hosei University Award for International Japanese Studies.