China And Japan In The Russian Imagination 1685 1922

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China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922

Author : Susanna Soojung Lim
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415629217
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922 by : Susanna Soojung Lim

Download or read book China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922 written by Susanna Soojung Lim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the centuries, as Russia strove to build itself into an imperial power equal to those in the West, China and Japan came to occupy a special place in Russians' view of the orient. Never colonised by Russia or the West, China and Japan were linked not only to the greatest of Russian imperial fantasies, but also, conversely, to a deep sense of insecurity regarding Russia's place in the world, a sense of insecurity which deepened as China and Japan began to modernise in the later nineteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of works by Russian writers and thinkers, Lim sets out how Russian perceptions of China and Japan were formed from Muscovy's first contacts with China in the late seventeenth century, through to the aftermath of Russia's defeat by Japan in the early twentieth century.

China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922

Author : Susanna Soojung Lim
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135071616
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922 by : Susanna Soojung Lim

Download or read book China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922 written by Susanna Soojung Lim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the centuries, as Russia strove to build itself into an imperial power equal to those in the West, China and Japan came to occupy a special place in Russians’ view of the orient. Never colonised by Russia or the West, China and Japan were linked not only to the greatest of Russian imperial fantasies, but also, conversely, to a deep sense of insecurity regarding Russia’s place in the world, a sense of insecurity which deepened as China and Japan began to modernise in the later nineteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of works by Russian writers and thinkers, Lim sets out how Russian perceptions of China and Japan were formed from Muscovy’s first contacts with China in the late seventeenth century, through to the aftermath of Russia’s defeat by Japan in the early twentieth century.

The Jesuit Missions to China and Peru, 1570-1610

Author : Ana Carolina Hosne
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135018332
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis The Jesuit Missions to China and Peru, 1570-1610 by : Ana Carolina Hosne

Download or read book The Jesuit Missions to China and Peru, 1570-1610 written by Ana Carolina Hosne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rulers of the overseas empires summoned the Society of Jesus to evangelize their new subjects in the ‘New World’ which Spain and Portugal shared; this book is about how two different missions, in China and Peru, evolved in the early modern world. From a European perspective, this book is about the way Christianity expanded in the early modern period, craving universalism. In China, Matteo Ricci was so impressed by the influence that the scholar-officials were able to exert on the Ming Emperor himself that he likened them to the philosopher-kings of Plato’s Republic. The Jesuits in China were in the hands of the scholar-officials, with the Emperor at the apex, who had the power to decide whether they could stay or not. Meanwhile, in Peru, the Society of Jesus was required to impose Tridentine Catholicism by Philip II, independently of Rome, a task that entailed compliance with the colonial authorities’ demands. This book explores how leading Jesuits, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) in China and José de Acosta (1540-1600) in Peru, envisioned mission projects and reflected them on the catechisms they both composed, with a remarkable power of endurance. It offers a reflection on how the Jesuits conceived and assessed these mission spaces, in which their keen political acumen and a certain taste for power unfolded, playing key roles in envisioning new doctrinal directions and reflecting them in their doctrinal texts.

Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship

Author : David Chapman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134512910
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (345 download)

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Book Synopsis Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship by : David Chapman

Download or read book Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship written by David Chapman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan’s Household Registration System (koseki seido) is an extremely powerful state instrument, and is socially entrenched with a long history of population governance, social control and the maintenance of social order. It provides identity whilst at the same time imposing identity upon everyone registered, and in turn, the state receives validity and legitimacy from the registration of its inhabitants. The study of the procedures and mechanisms for identifying and documenting people provides an important window into understanding statecraft, and by examining the koseki system, this book provides a keen insight into social and political change in Japan. By looking through the lens of the koseki system, the book takes both an historical as well as a contemporary approach to understanding Japanese society. In doing so, it develops our understanding of contemporary Japan within the historical context of population management and social control; reveals the social effects and influence of the koseki system throughout its history; and presents new insights into citizenship, nationality and identity. Furthermore, this book develops our knowledge of state functions and indeed the nation state itself, through engaging critically with important issues relating to the koseki while at the same time providing a platform for further investigation. The contributors to this volume utilise a variety of disciplinary areas including history, gender studies, sociology, law and anthropology, and each chapter provides insights that bring us closer to a comprehensive grasp of the role, effects and historical background of what is a crucial and influential instrument of the Japanese state. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese history, Japanese culture and society, Japanese studies, Asian social policy and demography more generally.

Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600-1900

Author : Gerald Groemer
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317409906
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600-1900 by : Gerald Groemer

Download or read book Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600-1900 written by Gerald Groemer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-13 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a thoroughly researched and meticulously documented study of the emergence, development, and demise of music, theatre, recitation, and dance witnessed by the populace on thoroughfares, plazas, and makeshift outdoor performance spaces in Edo/Tokyo. For some three hundred years this city was the centre of such arts, both sacred and secular. This study outlines the nature of the performances, explores the social relations which lay behind them, and reveals vast complexity: an obligation of gift-giving on the part of observers; performers who were often economic migrants fallen on hard times; relations of performance to social class; a class system much more finely gradated than the official four caste system; and institutions of professional organization and registration, enforced by government, with penalties for unregistered performers. The book discusses how performing, witnessing, and rewarding performance were closely bound up with economy, society and government, how the interaction between various groups related to socio-economic advancement, how the system of street performance reinforced social control, and how the balance between different groups shifted over time.

The Post-war Roots of Japanese Political Malaise

Author : Dagfinn Gatu
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317526473
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis The Post-war Roots of Japanese Political Malaise by : Dagfinn Gatu

Download or read book The Post-war Roots of Japanese Political Malaise written by Dagfinn Gatu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writings on post-war Japanese politics have tended to take for granted the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as inevitable, without questioning how this came about. This book analyses the nature of Japanese party politics over the first four decades following the Second World War, assessing how the chief contenders – the conservative LDP and the socialists JSP (Japan Socialist Party) – competed in terms of their strengths and weaknesses relative to the other. Throughout, it addresses the questions: How effectively were the parties’ strengths harnessed? How did they alter over time? To what extent was the winning formula challenged? Did the loser have access to strengths with a major potential, and, if so, why did these remain underdeveloped? It extends widely to include discussion of the political system, the social and economic environment in which parties operated, internal party matters, especially factions, personal support groups, special interest groups, and the role of government bureaucracy. It shows why the Liberal Democratic Party was dominant, why the Japan Socialist Party remained out of power, and how successive prime ministers conducted policymaking in ways which often resulted in the bureaucracy taking the lead. Overall, the book shows how precedents for the political system and for policymaking were set in this important period, precedents which continue, and which have contributed significantly to the present conservative stance on many key issues.

Opium’s Long Shadow

Author : Steffen Rimner
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674976304
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Opium’s Long Shadow by : Steffen Rimner

Download or read book Opium’s Long Shadow written by Steffen Rimner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-12 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The League of Nations Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, created in 1920, culminated almost eight decades of political turmoil over opium trafficking, which was by far the largest state-backed drug trade in the age of empire. Opponents of opium had long struggled to rein in the profitable drug. Opium’s Long Shadow shows how diverse local protests crossed imperial, national, and colonial boundaries to gain traction globally and harness public opinion as a moral deterrent in international politics after World War I. Steffen Rimner traces the far-flung itineraries and trenchant arguments of reformers—significantly, feminists and journalists—who viewed opium addiction as a root cause of poverty, famine, “white slavery,” and moral degradation. These activists targeted the international reputation of drug-trading governments, first and foremost Great Britain, British India, and Japan, becoming pioneers of the global political tactic we today call naming and shaming. But rather than taking sole responsibility for their own behavior, states in turn appropriated anti-drug criticism to shame fellow sovereigns around the globe. Consequently, participation in drug control became a prerequisite for membership in the twentieth-century international community. Rimner relates how an aggressive embrace of anti-drug politics earned China and other Asian states new influence on the world stage. The link between drug control and international legitimacy has endured. Amid fierce contemporary debate over the wisdom of narcotics policies, the 100-year-old moral consensus Rimner describes remains a backbone of the international order.

Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan

Author : Francesca Di Marco
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317384296
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan by : Francesca Di Marco

Download or read book Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan written by Francesca Di Marco and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan’s suicide phenomenon has fascinated both the media and academics, although many questions and paradoxes embedded in the debate on suicide have remained unaddressed in the existing literature, including the assumption that Japan is a "Suicide Nation". This tendency causes common misconceptions about the suicide phenomenon and its features. Aiming to redress the situation, this book explores how the idea of suicide in Japan was shaped, reinterpreted and reinvented from the 1900s to the 1980s. Providing a timely contribution to the underexplored history of suicide, it also adds to the current heated debates on the contemporary way we organize our thoughts on life and death, health and wealth, on the value of the individual, and on gender. The book explores the genealogy and development of modern suicide in Japan by examining the ways in which beliefs about the nation’s character, historical views of suicide, and the cultural legitimation of voluntary death acted to influence even the scientific conceptualization of suicide in Japan. It thus unveils the way in which the language on suicide was transformed throughout the century according to the fluctuating relationship between suicide and the discourse on national identity, and pathological and cultural narratives. In doing so, it proposes a new path to understanding the norms and mechanisms of the process of the conceptualization of suicide itself. Filling in a critical gap in three particular fields of historical study: the history of suicide, the history of death, and the cultural history of twentieth century Japan, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies and Japanese History.

International Competition in China, 1899-1991

Author : Bruce A. Elleman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317537777
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis International Competition in China, 1899-1991 by : Bruce A. Elleman

Download or read book International Competition in China, 1899-1991 written by Bruce A. Elleman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China's recent economic reforms have opened its economy to the world. This policy, however, is not new: in the late nineteenth century, the United States put forward the Open Door Policy as a counter to European exclusive 'spheres of influence' in China. This book, based on extensive original archival research, examines and re-evaluates China's Open Door Policy. It considers the policy from its inception in 1899 right through to the post-1978 reforms. It relates these changes to the various shifts in China’s international relations, discusses how decades of foreign invasion, civil war and revolution followed the destruction of the policy in the 1920s, and considers how the policy, when applied in Taiwan after 1949, and by Deng Xiaoping in mainland China after 1978, was instrumental in bringing about, respectively, Taiwan's 'economic miracle' and mainland China’s recent economic boom. The book argues that, although the policy was characterised as United States 'economic imperialism' during the Cold War, in reality it helped China retain its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Qing Encounters

Author : Petra ten-Doesschate Chu
Publisher : Getty Publications
ISBN 13 : 1606064576
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Qing Encounters by : Petra ten-Doesschate Chu

Download or read book Qing Encounters written by Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Qing Encounters: Artistic Exchanges between China and the West examines how the contact between China and Europe in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries transformed the arts on both sides of the East-West divide. The essays in the volume reveal the extent to which images, artifacts, and natural specimens were traded and copied, and how these materials inflected both cultures’ visions of novelty and pleasure, battle and power, and ways of seeing and representing. Artists and craftspeople on both continents borrowed and adapted forms, techniques, and modes of representation, producing deliberate, meaningful, and complex new creations. By considering this reciprocity from both Eastern and Western perspectives, Qing Encounters offers a new and nuanced understanding of this critical period.

Tsushima

Author : Rotem Kowner
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192566814
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Tsushima by : Rotem Kowner

Download or read book Tsushima written by Rotem Kowner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Tsushima was the most decisive naval engagement in the century that elapsed since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Although these two battles are often compared, the Battle of Tsushima, in which the Japanese Imperial Navy defeated the Russian Imperial Navy, was also unprecedented in many ways. It marks the first naval victory of an Asian power over a major European power; the most devastating defeat suffered by the Imperial Russian Navy in its entire history; and the only truly decisive engagement between two battleship fleets in modern times. In addition, the Battle of Tsushima was also the most decisive naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War and one that exerted a major impact on the course of that war. Its impact was so dramatic, in fact, that the two belligerents concluded a peace agreement within three months of the battle's conclusion. At the same time, and because it involved two of the world's largest fleets, the influence this battle exerted was both far reaching and long standing. In subsequent years, the symbolic victory of an "Eastern" power over Tsarist Russia using modern technology was feared and celebrated in both the Western and the Colonial worlds. Similarly, and in both Japan and Russia, the Battle of Tsushima had a prolonged impact on their respective navies as well as on their geopolitical ambitions in Asia and beyond. By relying on a diverse array of primary sources, this book examines the battle in depth and is the first to offer a penetrating analysis of its global impact as well as the way its memory has evolved in both Japan and Russia.

Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border

Author : Svetlana Paichadze
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317618890
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border by : Svetlana Paichadze

Download or read book Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border written by Svetlana Paichadze and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth century, as the Russian empire expanded eastwards and the Japanese empire expanded onto the Asian continent, the Russo-Japanese border became contested on and around the island of Sakhalin, its Russian name, or Karafuto, as it is known in Japanese. Then in the wake of the Second World War, Russia seized control of the island and the Japanese inhabitants were deported. Sakhalin’s history as a border zone makes it a lynchpin of Russo-Japanese relations, and as such it is a rich case study for exploring the key themes of this book: life in the borderlands, migration, repatriation, historical memory, multiculturalism and identity. With a focus on cross-border dialogue, Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border reveals the lives of the ordinary people in the border regions between Russia and Japan, and how they and their communities have been affected by shifts in the Russo-Japanese border over the past century-and-a-half. Examining the lives and experiences of repatriates from Karafuto/Sakhalin in contemporary Hokkaido and their contribution to the multicultural society of Japan’s northernmost island, the chapters cover the border shifts in Karafuto/Sakhalin up until 1945, the immediate aftermath the Second World War, the commemorative practices and memories of those in both Japan and Eastern Russia, and, finally, postwar lives by drawing extensively on interviews with people in the communities affected most by the shifting border. This interdisciplinary book will be of huge interest to students and scholars across a broad range of subjects including Russo-Japanese relations, Northeast Asian history, border studies, migration studies, and the Second World War.

Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Modern Japanese Empire

Author : David G. Wittner
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317444361
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Modern Japanese Empire by : David G. Wittner

Download or read book Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Modern Japanese Empire written by David G. Wittner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, technology, and medicine all contributed to the emerging modern Japanese empire and conditioned key elements of post-war development. As the only emerging non-Western country that was a colonial power in its own right, Japan utilized these fields not only to define itself as racially different from other Asian countries and thus justify its imperialist activities, but also to position itself within the civilized and enlightened world with the advantages of modern science, technologies, and medicine. This book explores the ways in which scientists, engineers and physicians worked directly and indirectly to support the creation of a new Japanese empire, focussing on the eve of World War I and linking their efforts to later post-war developments. By claiming status as a modern, internationally-engaged country, the Japanese government was faced with having to control pathogens that might otherwise not have threatened the nation. Through the use of traditional and innovative techniques, this volume shows how the government was able to fulfil the state’s responsibility to protect society to varying degrees. Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Red at Heart

Author : Elizabeth McGuire
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190640553
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis Red at Heart by : Elizabeth McGuire

Download or read book Red at Heart written by Elizabeth McGuire and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a debut author, an intimate, multigenerational narrative of the Russian and Chinese revolutions through the eyes of the Chinese youth who traveled to the Soviet Union and the fate of their blended offspring

The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance

Author : David Williams
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317918568
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance by : David Williams

Download or read book The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance written by David Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transcripts of the three Kyoto School roundtable discussions of the theme of ‘the standpoint of world history and Japan’ may now be judged to form the key source text of responsible Pacific War revisionism. Published in the pages of Chuo Koron, the influential magazine of enlightened elite Japanese opinion during the twelve months after Pearl Harbor, these subversive discussions involved four of the finest minds of the second generation of the Kyoto School of philosophy. Tainted by controversy and shrouded in conspiratorial mystery, these transcripts were never republished in Japan after the war, and they have never been translated into English except in selective and often highly biased form. David Williams has now produced the first objective, balanced and close interpretative reading of these three discussions in their entirety since 1943. This version of the wartime Kyoto School transcripts is neither a translation nor a paraphrase but a fuller rendering in reader-friendly English that is convincingly faithful to the spirit of the original texts. The result is a masterpiece of interpretation and inter-cultural understanding between the Confucian East and the liberal West. Seventy years after Tojo came to power, these documents of the Japanese resistance to his wartime government and policies exercise a unique claim on students of Japanese history and thought today because of their unrivalled revelatory potential within the vast literature on the Pacific War. The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance may therefore stand as the most trenchant analysis of the political, philosophic and legal foundations of the place of the Pacific War in modern Japanese history yet to appear in any language.

Race and Racism in Modern East Asia

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004237410
Total Pages : 617 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Download or read book Race and Racism in Modern East Asia written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race and Racism in Modern East Asia juxtaposes Western racial constructions of East Asians with constructions of race and their outcomes in modern East Asia. It is the first endeavor to explicitly and coherently link constructions of race and racism in both regions. These constructions have not only played a decisive role in shaping the relations between the West and East Asia since the mid nineteenth century, but also exert substantial influence on current relations and mutual images in both the East-West nexus and East Asia. Written by some of the field's leading authorities, this groundbreaking 21-chapter volume offers an analysis of these constructions, their evolution and their interrelations.

Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution

Author : Takii Kazuhiro
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317818474
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (178 download)

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Book Synopsis Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution by : Takii Kazuhiro

Download or read book Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution written by Takii Kazuhiro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brilliant and influential statesman, Itō Hirobumi (1841-1909), and the first prime minister of Japan’s modern state, has been poorly understood. This biography attempts to set the record straight about Itō’s thought and vision for Japan’s modernisation based on research in primary sources. It outlines Itō’s life: the son of a poor farmer, he showed exceptional talent as a boy and was sent to study in Europe and the United States. He returned home convinced that Western civilisation was the only viable path for Japan. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Itō became a powerful intellectual and political force behind reforms of Japanese laws and institutions aimed to shape a modern government based on informed leadership and a knowledeable populace. Among his many achievements were the establishment of Japan’s first constitution—the Meiji Constitution of 1889, and the founding in 1900 of a new type of constitutional party, the Rikken Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional Government), which, reformulated after 1945, became the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated Japanese politics in the postwar period. Concerning Itō’s role as Japanese Resident-General in Korea from 1905, the author argues that Itō’s aim, not understood by either the Japanese home government or Koreans themselves, was not to colonize Korea. He was determined to modernise Korea and consolidate further constitutional reforms in Japan. This aim was not shared by others, and Itō resigned in 1909. He was assassinated the same year in Manchuria by a Korean nationalist. The Japanese language edition of this book is a bestseller in Japan, and it received the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, one of Japan's most prestigious publishing awards.