Modern Japan: A Historical Survey

609 Pages·2012·3.143 MB·English

by  Mikiso Hane, Louis G. Perez

“The late scholar Mikiso Hane firmly believed that the story of modern Japan should
not be just about political leaders, business tycoons, and military commanders, Mikiso Hane and
but should include the rural population, urban workers, the poor, and the story of
women. Perez has both retained the essential spirit of Hane’s vision and provided Louis G. Perez
insights from recent scholarship.”
—Parks Coble, University of nebraska
“Lou Perez has performed a heroic service to keep Mikiso Hane’s highly readable
Modern Japan in print and updated. Professor Hane’s commitment to bringing the
voices of Japan’s dissident and downtrodden women and men to our attention,
contextualized within detailed narratives of political and international developments,
permeates the entire text. Both authors not only make Japan intelligible to general
readers but also make clear that, along with its benefits, modernity came with
attendant costs that the Japanese people continue to bear.”
Hane
—e. taylor atkins, northern illinois University
Perez
Fifth
Integrating political events with cultural, economic, and intellectual movements, Modern Japan provides
a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history. A summary of Japan’s early history, em-
Edition
phasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction M
to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present.
J
The fifth edition of Modern Japan is updated throughout to include the latest information on Japan’s o
international relations, including secret diplomatic correspondence recently disclosed on WikiLeaks. This
a
edition brings Japanese history up to date in the post-9/11 era, detailing current issues such as: the
d
impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations; the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and
P
subsequent nuclear accident; the recent tumultuous change of political leadership; and Japan’s current
Modern
economic and global status. An updated chronological chart, list of prime ministers, and bibliography are ae
also included.
nr
The late Mikiso hane was Szold Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Knox College.
n
Louis G. Perez is Distinguished University Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at JaPan
Illinois State University.

Cover Image © Tokyo/PoodlesroCk/CorbIs
Cover desIgn: mIguel sanTana & Wendy HalITzer
Fifth
edition
a HIsTorICal survey
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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www.perseusacademic.com
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MODERN
JAPAN
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MODERN
JAPAN
A Historical Survey
FIFTH EDITION
MIKISO HANE
late of Knox College
LOUIS G. PEREZ
Illinois State University
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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Published by Westview Press,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hane, Mikiso.
Modern Japan : a historical survey / Mikiso Hane, Louis G. Perez.—5th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8133-4694-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8133-4695-3
(e-book) 1. Japan—History—19th century. 2. Japan—History—20th century.
I. Perez, Louis G. II. Title.
DS881.H36 2012
952'.025—dc23
2012016444
0813346946-Hane_Layout 1 5/14/12 2:08 PM Page v
Contents
A Note on Japanese and Chinese Names viii
Preface ix
1 Japan Before the Seventeenth Century 1
Early History of the Japanese People 1 ° Traditional Culture and
Institutions of the Pre-Tokugawa Years 6 ° Notes 15
2 Establishment of the Tokugawa Bakufu 17
The Shōgun of the Tokugawa Bakufu 17 ° Tokugawa Institutions 20 °
The Structure of Tokugawa Society 25 ° The Culture of the Tokugawa
Period 32 ° Notes 35
3 The Late Tokugawa Period 37
Political Developments 37 ° Economic Problems 40 ° The Lot
of the Peasants 45 ° Peasant Uprisings 49 ° Agricultural Improvements
52 ° Intellectual Currents: Reformers and Critics 54 ° Notes 60
4 The Fall of the Tokugawa Bakufu 63
Arrival of Commodore Perry 63 ° The Immediate Consequences 66 °
The Mentality of Sonnō Jōi 69 ° The Rise of the Anti-Bakufu
Forces 72 ° The Meiji Restoration 78 ° Notes 82
5 The Meiji Restoration: The New Order 83
Political Changes 86 ° Local Government 89 ° Social Reforms 90 °
Pensions for the Kazoku and Shizoku 92 ° Revision of the Land
Tax and the Plight of the Farmers 93 ° Legal Reforms 94 ° The
Police System 95 ° The Army and the Navy 95 ° Economic
Developments 96 ° Education 100 ° Civilization and
Enlightenment 104 ° Religion 106 ° Notes 108
v
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vi Contents
6 The Continuing Meiji Revolution (I):
Political Developments 111
Political Reactions 113 ° Agrarian Unrest 117 ° The Movement for
Popular Rights 120 ° Fortification of the Central Government 129 °
The Constitution 131 ° Notes 133
7 The Continuing Meiji Revolution (II):
Cultural, Economic, and Social Developments 135
Cultural Nationalism 135 ° Initial Modern Economic Growth 143 °
The Plight of the Workers 147 ° Social Conditions 151 ° Notes 153
8 Political Developments in Later Meiji 157
Partisan Politics: 1887–1894 159 ° The Korean Question and
the Sino-Japanese War 163 ° Postwar Domestic Political
Developments 168 ° Notes 176
9 The Conclusion of the Meiji Era 179
The Russo-Japanese War 179 ° Foreign Affairs After the War 187 °
Internal Affairs After the War 188 ° The Death of Emperor Meiji
191 ° Meiji Japan: An Assessment 194 ° Notes 199
10 The Era of Parliamentary Ascendancy (I) 201
Internal Political Affairs: 1912–1918 202 ° Foreign Affairs 207 °
Economic Developments: 1906–1930 215 ° Social Reform
Movements: Labor 218 ° Agrarian Reform Movements 220 ° The
Outcastes and the Suiheisha 221 ° Movement for Women’s Rights 222 °
Democratic and Socialistic Political Movements 224 ° Notes 228
11 The Era of Parliamentary Ascendancy (II) 231
Culture of the Taishō Era 231 ° Political Developments:
1918–1932 239 ° Notes 255
12 The Ascendancy of Militarism 257
Radical Nationalists and Militarists 257 ° Conspiracies and
Assassinations 263 ° The Manchurian Incident 266 ° Internal
Political Developments: The Triumph of the Militarists 271 °
Economic Developments 283 ° Notes 286
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Contents vii
13 The Road to War 289
China Policy to 1937 289 ° The China Incident 294 ° Internal
Developments 301 ° Further Foreign Entanglements 305 °
Negotiations with the United States 312 ° The Occupation of Southern
French Indochina 314 ° The Decision for War 316 ° Notes 327
14 War and Defeat 329
The Offensive War 329 ° The War at Home 333 ° The Defensive
War 338 ° The Allied Strategy: “Island Hopping” 339 ° The
Transference of Leadership from Tōjō to Koiso 344 ° The Beginning
of the End 346 ° The Battle for Leyte Gulf 347 ° The End of the
Fighting: The Kamikaze 349 ° The Economics of Warfare 351 °
The Finale 352 ° Notes 359
15 The Postwar Years (I): Reform and Reconstruction 363
The MacArthur Era 363 ° Political Developments During the
Occupation Years 376 ° Notes 381
16 The Postwar Years (II): Political Developments
After Independence 383
The Yoshida Years 383 ° After Yoshida: The 1955 System 385 ° End
of LDP Dominance 391 ° Foreign Relations 401 ° Economic
Developments 415 ° The Japanese Economy in the Early 1990s:
Recession 430 ° Notes 430
17 Social and Educational Developments 437
Social Developments 437 ° Education 458 ° Notes 466
18 Cultural Developments 471
American Influence 471 ° Survival of the Traditional Outlook 474 °
Religion 476 ° Literature 478 ° Cinema 485 ° Art and
Architecture 488 ° Popular Culture 490 ° Baseball and Other Sports
492 ° Revival of Nationalism? 494 ° Yasukuni Controversy 496 °
End of the Shōwa Reign 500 ° Three Strikes 504 ° Notes 520
Appendix A: The Internet 527
Appendix B: Chronological Chart 532
Appendix C: List of Prime Ministers 538
Selected Bibliography 540
Index 583
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A Note on Japanese and Chinese Names
personal names
Japanese and Chinese family names are listed first, followed by the personal
name (e.g., Yamagata Aritomo), except when the individual is well-known by
the Anglicized version (e.g., I. M. Pei or Akira Iriye).
Similarly, certain historical figures are better known by their Anglicized
names than by their actual names (e.g., Ch’iang K’ai-shek is better known than
Jiang Jieshi; Sun Yat-sen is better known than Sun Zhongshan). An attempt
will be made to use the Pin-yin version but indicate the Anglicized name in
parentheses the first time it is used.
place names
The Pin-yin system will be used except when a quotation is made from an-
other source or when the old Wade-Giles system is so familiar that using the
new system would seem to be an affectation (e.g., “Beijing Duck” or the Japa-
nese “Guangdong Army”).
viii
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Preface
The quarter-century since Mikiso Hane’s first edition of Modern Japan: A His-
torical Survey was published in 1986 has not been particularly good for Japan.
Since then, Japan has slipped from its newly acquired status as the world’s
number-one economy to what many consider third place behind the United
States and China. The last ten years of the twentieth century and the first ten
years of the twenty-first have been justly called the “Lost Decades” in Japan.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had ruled Japan since its incep-
tion in 1955, encountered a political groundswell that ousted it from power in
the early 1990s and cracked it open like an eggshell in the mid-2000s. Leftist
political movements coalesced briefly in the 1990s but fell apart shortly and
were stymied by other political forces in the 2000s.
The national economy that had soared in the 1980s burst like a child’s soap
bubble in the 1990s. Japan’s financial class, which had arrogantly acquired
iconic markers of European and American power (e.g., Rockefeller Center in
New York City and countless works of art) when Japan’s land prices skyrock-
eted in the 1980s, ignominiously sold them off in the 1990s when Tokyo land
prices collapsed. Suddenly the “Japan Inc.” that had smugly preached Japanese
quality control to the American automobile industry no longer strutted about
as if it really believed that Japan was “Number One,” as one American aca-
demic had claimed a decade before.1
Japan had piously preached world peace by virtue of its Peace Constitution,
which eschews war as an extension of diplomacy. In the early 1980s Japan’s
diplomats began a concerted effort to have Japan installed as a permanent
member of the United Nations Security Council. Beginning in the early
1990s, however, it sheepishly contributed huge sums to support the United
Nations in quixotic military ventures into Bosnia, Iraq (twice!), and Afghani-
stan. The other members of the Security Council (Great Britain, Russia,
France, the United States, and the People’s Republic of China) firmly re-
minded Japan that in order to become a permanent member, one had to
ix