What do Nara Buddhsim and Postmodernism have in common? Well the core ideas of postmodernism that give the impression of being new and uniquely contemporary have actually been in use since at least 8th century Japan. This break in the intellectual heritage and traditions touches on what will be one of our running themes and that is:

Forgotten Knowledge of the Past.

Early State formation is often taken as a natural progression of Social Complexity. Today we are going to take a closer look at what exactly a state is, the mechanisms through which they develop and how we can see these changes happening in the Japanese Archipelago in the 1st millennium AD

Today we are exploring Mordern Japan. Heisei and Reiwa.

These are the most recent eras and least likely to be a history textbook. Saddly, I am more of a Historian than a modern Japan Scholar so I will keep this to major events, significant people and an anacdote here and there.

The Lost Decade

Fukushima

New Emperor

And a few More!

The war period brought about incomprehensible suffering and death throughout the world. It ended with the surrender aboard the USS Missouri in 1945. The US would then seize control of the Japanese islands and begin to rebuild Japan, not so much as to help the people of Japan but to contain the spread of communism. The US policy towards Japan was sold as a way of helping to rebuild a defeated enemy but in reality, was used as a pawn to advance US political interests and the financial interests of individual politicians and military officers.

The post-war period was a time when the Japanese public suffered a crisis of identity. The economic and social challenges from the war only compounded the terrible human cost of the war but Japan would experience a rise through the ashes to become a world superpower within only a few decades (theme here). This wave of growth and progress came to a halt when the economic consequences of Japanese monetary policy came home to roost in the 1990’s. Today we will explore The post-war period and the Economic miracle on ICD.

Japan’s wars in the 20th century began with conflict with China and Russia, and the occupation of many colonies. We will be focusing on the quagmire of a war the Japanese conducted in China and the mistakes in the Pasific culminating with the Atomic Bombs and the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied forces.

The periods we will explore today will stretch from the Meiji restoration until the Manchurian Incident in 1931. The Meiji Period saw the rise of the emperor to power and Japan becoming an Empire once again.

The Taisho period saw the rule by a sickly emperor and the widespread democratization of the Japanese government.

These periods saw the modernization of Japan, transforming from a medieval society to an Imperial Nation-State in the style of A Euro-American empire. The problems that the Japanese EMpire would face were the same that all colonizing powers do, internal turmoil brought about by over expansion.

We are well on our way to reaching modern Japan, but we have not yet left Medieval Japan. There were three great Shogunates: the Kamakura, the Ashikaga and the Tokugawa. WE saw how the Kamakura and Ashikaga rose to power and fell from internal conflict and turmoil. We surveyed the Sengoku period and now have arrived at Edo, the largest city in the world which became Tokyo, the largest city in the world today. The Edo period is when Japan closed itself off to the world, the seeds of Nationalism took root and the cultures we associate with traditional Japan solidified.

The Sengoku period begins with a civil war that would tear the Ashikaga Clan asunder and end when the Tokugawa shogunate established itself as the undisputed ruler of the Japanese Archipelago.

The Sengoku period is often the setting for Japanese folktales, legends, Dramas, Cartoons, and Film. The period lends itself to storytelling due to the decentralized nature and the way it is romanticized in Japanese culture.

The Kamakura Period saw a continued march into the mawls of war for the political centers of Japan and this warfare spread further throughout the islands than in previous periods. The Shoen system that had first been established in the Nara period grew stronger and now existed as semi autonomous states. These became nodes in a network of land and population control

That resulted in greater parts of the islands to be influenced by the events of the capital and abroad. With the growth of these states, there was also a continued development of Buddhism law and culture. The forms of Buddhism that became widespread among the people reflected the needs and attitudes of the time. (PureLand and Zen)

At the end of the Kamakura period we do not see an end to the Conflict but only the next chapter in the turmoil

The Heian period is the End of Ancient Japan and opens the doors to Classical Japan.

The Heian Period saw the Capital move to Heian-Kyo and the nature of power and government change as well. The way that Emperors ruled and the power they held shifted throughout the period with the Fujiwara clan learning to rule through intermarriage. The period saw the blossoming of Japanese art, culture, and civilization that laid the foundation for traditional Japanese culture and aesthetics. Eventually, the emperor’s power declined to the point where a military dictatorship was able to rise and functionally rule the Japanese Islands from Kamakura. When the Heian period ends, The Kamakura Shogunate begins.