Table of Contents

Introduction: Enduring Imprints of the Longer Past ; PART 1. CRISIS OF THE TOKUGAWA REGIME ; 1. THE TOKUGAWA POLITY ; Unification ; The Tokugawa Political Settlements ; 2. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS ; The Seventeenth-Century Boom ; Riddles of Stagnation and Vitality ; 3. THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD OF LATE TOKUGAWA ; Ideological Foundations of the Tokugawa Regime ; Cultural Diversity and Contradictions ; Reform, Critiques, and Insurgent Ideas ; 4. THE OVERTHROW OF THE TOKUGAWA ; The Western Powers and the Unequal Treaties ; The Crumbling of Tokugawa Rule ; Politics of Terror and Accommodation ; Bakufu Revival, the Satsuma-Choshu Insurgency, and Domestic Unrest ; PART 2. MODERN REVOLUTION, 1868-1905 ; 5. THE SAMURAI REVOLUTION ; Programs of Nationalist Revolution ; Building a Rich Country ; Stances toward the World ; 6. PARTICIPATION AND PROTEST ; Political Discourse and Contention ; Movement for Freedom and People's Rights ; Samurai Rebellions, Peasant Uprisings, and New Religions ; Participation for Women ; Treaty Revision and Domestic Politics ; The Meiji Constitution ; 7. SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS ; Landlords and Tenants ; Industrial Revolution ; The Work Force and Labor Conditions ; Spread of Mass and Higher Education ; Culture and Religion ; Affirmations of Japanese Identity and Destiny ; 8. EMPIRE AND DOMESTIC ORDER ; The Trajectory to Empire ; Contexts of Empire, Capitalism, and Nation-Building ; The Turbulent World of Diet Politics ; The Era of Popular Protest ; Engineering Nationalism ; PART 3. IMPERIAL JAPAN FROM ASCENDANCE TO ASHES ; 9. ECONOMY AND SOCIETY ; Wartime Boom and Postwar Bust ; Landlords, Tenants, and Rural Life ; City Life: Middle and Working Classes ; Cultural Responses to Social Change ; 10. DEMOCRACY AND EMPIRE BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS ; The Emergence of Party Cabinets ; The Structure of Parliamentary Government ; Ideological Challenges ; Strategies of Imperial Democratic Rule ; Japan, Asia, and the Western Powers ; 11. THE DEPRESSION CRISIS AND RESPONSES ; Economic and Social Crisis ; Breaking the Impasse: New Departures Abroad ; Toward a New Social and Economic Order ; Toward a New Political Order ; 12. JAPAN IN WARTIME ; Wider War in China ; Toward Pearl Harbor ; The Pacific War ; Mobilizing for Total War ; Living in the Shadow of War ; Ending the War ; Burdens and Legacies of War ; 13. OCCUPIED JAPAN: NEW DEPARTURES AND DURABLE STRUCTURES ; Bearing the Unbearable ; The American Agenda: Demilitarize and Democratize ; Japanese Responses ; The Reverse Course ; Toward Recovery and Independence: Another Unequal Treaty? ; PART 4. POSTWAR AND CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, 1952-2000 ; 14. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION ; The Postwar "Economic Miracle" ; Transwar Patterns of Community, Family, School, and Work ; Shared Experiences and Standardized Lifeways of the Postwar Era ; Differences Enduring and Realigned ; Managing Social Stability and Change ; Images and Ideologies of Social Stability and Change ; 15. POLITICAL STRUGGLES AND SETTLEMENTS OF THE HIGH-GROWTH ERA ; Political Struggles ; The Politics of Accommodation ; Global Connections: Oil Crisis and the End of High Growth ; 16. GLOBAL POWER IN A POLARIZED WORLD: JAPAN IN THE 1980S ; New Roles in the World and New Tensions ; Economy: Thriving through the Oil Crises ; Politics: The Conservative Heyday ; Society and Culture in the Exuberant Eighties ; 17. BEYOND THE POSTWAR ERA ; The End of Showa ; The Specter of a Divided Society ; Economy of the "Lost Decade" ; The Fall and Rise of the Liberal Democratic Party ; Between Asia and the West ; Ongoing Presence of the Pat ; Appendix A. Prime Ministers of Japan, 1885-2001

About the Author

History at Harvard University (also Chair of the Department).

Reviews

A Chinese saying has it that "each step changes the mountain." Likewise, each major turn in history changes how we understand what went before: as Japan now continues in an economic funk that followed but did not wipe out the "economic miracle" of the postwar period, we need to rethink our histories once again to explain the origins of prosperity, the evolution of what it means to be Japanese, and the roots of obstinacy. Gordon's clearheaded, readable, and inquisitive narrative, aimed at students and serious general readers, accomplishes this task molto con brio. Head of Harvard's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Gordon tells a sweeping and provocative story of Japan's political, economic, social, and cultural inventions of its modernity in evolving international contexts, incorporating inside viewpoints and debates. Beyond identifying the national stages (feudalism, militarism, democracy), the author innovatively emphasizes how labor unions, cultural figures, and groups in society (especially women) have been affected over time and have responded. Recommended both for general libraries and for specialist collections.-Charles W. Hayford, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.