“Opening” Japan–The Meiji Restoration
The new fighting the old in Meiji Japan. ca. 1870
As I’ve mentioned before, in 1853 the United States government forced Japan to open its ports to United States merchants in a literal display of gunboat diplomacy. Commodore Perry’s act of military aggression against Japan is often given credit for dragging Japan into the nineteenth century. In fact, the real credit for Japan’s transformation belongs to the generation of Japanese elites who orchestrated the political and cultural revolution known as the Meiji Restoration.
Under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan had chosen to shut itself off from Western influence in the early seventeenth century. By the mid-eighteenth century, Japanese suspicion of all things Western had begun to fray around the edges, at least among the intellectual elite. A handful of Japanese scholars shifted their focus from Chinese culture to so-called “Dutch learning”.*
In the early nineteenth century, motivated by domestic problems and the threat embodied in Perry’s “black ships of evil mien”, reform-minded daimyo** began to mutter against the power of the shogunate, agitate for a restoration of imperial power, and call for the adoption of western learning and technology, particularly Western military technology. (We are, after all, talking about members of the samurai class, who were defined by their role as warriors.) In the years after Perry “opened” Japan,*** muttering turned to civil war.
In January, 1868, after two years of war, reformist (or perhaps more accurately, anti-Shogun) troops occupied Edo Castle, abolished the shogunate and proclaimed the “restoration” of the fifteen year old emperor, known by the reign name of Meiji. The Meiji Restoration, which lasted until 1912, was a period of self-conscious modernization and westernization–a focused leap across more than 200 years of technical innovation and social revolution in a period of forty some years. Members of the Japanese elite were sent to Europe and the United States to learn about Western government, western industry, and western culture. The reforms that followed transformed the government, the economy, land ownership, education, and the military. Much of Japan’s traditional life style was swept away, leaving in its place a new enthusiasm for western ideas on the part of urban intellectuals, a newly reconstructed vernacular literary language, and a new philosophy of individualism.
The abolition of the samurai as a warrior class was perhaps not the most important of the changes in practical terms but it was the clearest symbol of the decision to move from the medieval to the modern world.The samurai class was officially abolished in a series of measures that began in 1871, when all samurais were required to cut off their topknots, and ended with the Haittorei Edict of March 1876, which took away the samurais’ right to carry swords.
Many samurai found new ways to serve Japan in the reformed government. Others found themselves with neither purpose nor livelihood. The last gasp of the samurai came in 1877. Saigo Takamori, sometimes known as the Last Samurai led a hopeless rebellion against the Japanese government. Six hundred samurai, armed with traditional sword and bow, fought the government’s newly trained modern army in an effort to reverse the westernizing changes that threatened their entire way of life. Many of the rebels believed it was better to die using the traditional weapons of the samurai than to live using modern ones–not surprisingly, they did.
With the samurai no longer a force, Japan built the modern army that would be a force to be reckoned with in the twentieth century.
*During the medieval period, Europeans in the Middle East were collectively known as Franks, after the Germanic tribes that ruled much of Europe. Similarly, “Dutch” was shorthand for all things Western in Japan because the only foreigners allowed to have direct contact with Japan were merchants from the Dutch East India Company (VOC). (You couldn’t describe Dutch interaction with Japan as close–the merchants were confined to the closely guarded island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor and VOC ships were allowed to dock once a year. The Iron Curtain looked like it was made from fishing net by comparison.)
**The feudal lords of shogunate Japan
***A phrase that always makes me think of a can opener and a tin of tuna.
Went The Day Well? Witnessing Waterloo
In case you’ve missed it, the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo is nigh. As is always the case with major historical anniversaries, major historical hoopla has begun. The first commemorative articles have already appeared. Reenactment groups are preparing a grand scale reenactment–5000 reeanctors, 300 horses, 100 cannons, a gazillion spectators.* And new books on the battle are flooding into history bloggers’ mailboxes.
David Crane opens his history of the Battle of Waterloo by referencing Bruegel’s painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, in which farmers plough their fields unaware of the boy falling from the sky. He offers the image as a metaphor for the way most people experience historical events–and as the basic idea behind Went The Day Well?: Witnessing Waterloo.
On June 18, 1815, Britons knew Napoleon, having escaped from Elba Island, was on the move across Europe. They had no idea that the final battle of the Napoleonic Wars– which was the defining event for a generation–was underway. This disjunction is the heart of the book.
The first section of the book is an hour-by-hour account, from midnight to midnight, of the Battle of Waterloo. Crane moves back and forth between Britain and Belgium, using diaries, newspapers and letters to look at both the battle and mundane details of that day in England as experienced by poets, radicals, foot soldiers, officers and paupers. He introduces readers to a factory boy, a soon-to-be-widowed bride and a Gothic novelist-cum-travel writer determined not to miss the most thrilling event of her time. The second, much shorter, portion of the book considers the aftermath of the battle, both for the individuals who appear in the prior section and for Britain as a whole.
Went The Day Well? is an unusual and illuminating account of Waterloo that will appeal to fans of the Napoleonic Wars and Regency history buffs alike.
* When we were in Belgium several years ago I actually thought about trying to attend this for about two insane moments.** Instead I’ll make do with the official reenactment website.
**Those of you who know me in real life and have watched me hyperventilate about the crowds at the Chicago Blues Fest–or Home Depot on a Saturday afternoon–are howling with laughter at the thought.
The heart of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
History in the Margins Has a Birthday–and a Giveaway
It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been hanging out here on the Margins for four (4!) years. It started as an experiment; it’s turned into a conversation. I’m honored that you read. I feel even more honored when you respond, whether it’s in the form of a comment here, an email, sharing a link to a post on Twitter, or talking back to your computer screen. Over the last four years you’ve expanded on the topic, asked questions, recommended books, given me ideas, and, on one occasion, administered a well deserved smack on the wrist.* Thank you.
Since it wouldn’t be a birthday party without presents, I have a handful of books to give away.** If you want your name to be put in the mid-sized mixing bowl, leave a comment or send me an e-mail before June 1. Tell me what kind of history you like to read, what period calls your name, who your historical hero is, or which of these books calls your name:
Cynthia Stokes Brown. Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present.
Richard Davenport-Hines. Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From.
Elizabeth de Waal. The Exile’s Return.
Darrin M. McMahon. Divine Fury: A History of Genius.
TWO COPIES:Nicola Phillips: The Profligate Son, or, A True Story of Family Conflict, Fashionable Vice, and Financial Ruin in Regency England.
At the risk of sounding like a presidential candidate,here’s to four more years!
*Scroll down to the comment by Wyatt. It’s worth reading. Wyatt, if you’re still reading, I want you to know I’ve used your comments as a touchstone ever since.
**Six books, six chances to win.,
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress