Al-Andalus: Islamic Spain Photo Essay Assignment

Meiji Restoration:
Industrial Japan
Photo Essay Assignment
Today’s Agenda
1.Watch
Assignment Video
~10 minutes
2. Research
and Complete
PPT
Meiji
Restoration:
Industrial Japan
Japan in the
th
19
century
Japan began the 19th century as it
had existed for centuries;
A Tokugawa Shogun ruled
through a central bureaucracy
tied by feudal alliances to local
daimyos and samurai.
Taxes were based on agriculture and
the samurai were sustained by
stipends paid to them by
the shogunate.
Culturally,
Japan had two
things going
for it:
1. Neo-Confucianism
grew among the elite
this fostered a secularism which
spared Japan from the
religious resistance to western
based reform.
2. Japan was
also
homogenous
ethnically.
Japan’s window
to Europe continued to
be the port city
of Nagasaki where
Dutch Studies
continued.
Otherwise, its
isolation
continued until
mid century.
In 1853 American
Matthew Perry
threatened to
bombard the
Japanese capital if
they did not open
up to American
trade.
Japan opened itself to
foreign influence and,
as in China, westerners
residing in Japan were
not subject to Japanese
laws.
There was a backlash
against foreigners in the
1860s. The samurai, using
surplus weapons
from America’s Civil War—
which had just ended,
defeated the shogun’s
army.
This delivered a clear message about
the supremacy of western military
technology.
The Meiji seized control in 1871
and began a period of reforms
that would be called The
Meiji
Restoration
included the following
reforms:
1) feudalism was abolished
2) political power was centralized
3) the
samurai
were sent
abroad to
learn about
western
science and
tech
4) the samurai were then abolished as a class
although many samurai became more, some took their
western learning and adopted modern political and
business practices.
They formed an important element of the
new business class created by
industrialization.
One important example was
Iwasaki Yataro who founded
the Mitsubishi company.
5) New nobility
The government was also
modernized into a centralized imperial
government with limited
parliamentary rule.
1) Constitution created
2)New Parliament, Diet
The parliament could
advise government, but
ultimate authority was
given to the emperor.
This combination gave great power to
wealthy businessmen who would
influence Japanese industrialization
accordingly.
3)
Only 5% of Japanese men had
the wealth requirement to vote
Thus Japan borrowed from the West
but retained aspects of its own
identity.
Industrial
Revolution
in Japan
1) armaments
updated (modern
Navy created)
2)
land reform—peasants given ownership of
land, Private Enterprise (Again, compare with Russia
3)
agricultural taxes replaced by
industrial taxes, revenues went up
4)
Japan borrowed from the West but maintained
close supervision on the type of reforms being
admitted. They wanted to retain their own culture.
Major problem
with Japan’s
industrialization:
they had very limited natural
resources and depended on
foreign coal and steel.
This led them to
become the final
great imperial nation
of the
th
19 century.
Japan would practice
imperialism in Asia to
gain the resources
it did not have.
Although it had a later start to
economic and industrial
modernization, Japan proved
itself very quickly in two
military conflicts:
1) Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)
Japan defeated China in war for Korea
2) Russo-Japanese War (1904)
Japan went to war with Russia over Russian eastward
encroachment in Asia,
particularly Manchuria and Korea.
The Russian navy
traveled half way
around the world only
to be completely
crushed by the superior
Japanese navy.
This would, in part,
lead to Revolution in
Russia in 1905.
Identity in Japan
• What is Japan?
– It was no longer traditional, but neither
was it western.
–Japanese schools began to advance the
idea that filial loyalty to the emperor
set them apart from other nations.
– Thus allegiance to the emperor became
an intrinsic part of Japanese nationalism.
Sources
• Notes:
http://www.historyhaven.com/APWH/unit%2
04/Japan%20in%20the%2019th%20century.ht
m
•
3. Turn PPT into a
PhotoEssay
– Follow the directions
given on the
assignment sheet
In your PPT focus in on the details that
you are writing your haiku on
4. Save Photo
essay as a
movie file
(.WMV) and
turn in