JAP100 Historie

This lecture will begin with a look at the political turmoil and unrest in Japan during the 1950s and 1960s that were resolved—or at least sublimated—by the 1970 paradigm. The early 1970s, just as this paradigm was taking root, witnessed major political and economic crises, the so-called “Nixon shocks” and oil shocks, which together formed a major turning point for postwar Japan. We will finish up by examining the bubble of the late 1980s and the crisis of national confidence that followed it in the 1995.

We will start off by looking at the road to surrender, and continue on to the road to reform and recovery. Along the way, we will consider the place of the atomic bombings in Japan’s defeat and surrender, and the radical reconstruction of Japan’s legal, political, economic, and social structures during the first years under the auspices of the US occupation. In particular, I emphasize the three Ds (democratize, demilitarize, and deconcentrate), and will also touch on the issue of the emperor’s war responsibility.

This lecture will consist of four distinct parts, arranged only partially in chronological order. The first will consist of a look at some of the less positive reaction to Japan’s rise and its victory over Russia. As we are reaching the end of the Meiji period in this lecture, this is a good time to look back on the imperial personage and institution as it was constructed over that time. That will take up the middle section of this lecture. The third part will return to the kind of more or less chronological narrative we have been following so far, taking us through the so-called “Taisho political crisis” of 1912, the year of Meiji’s death, and into the World War I era. The final section treats the annexation and subsequent treatment of Korea, with some reference, particularly for the purposes of comparison, to Japan’s older colony, Taiwan.

This lecture will examine the so-called “reverse course” taken by the American occupiers after 1947; the “1955 system” of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party and the related “iron triangle” of conservative politicians, bureaucrats, and big business; and finally the “economic miracle” of the period of high growth and the 1964 Tokyo Olympiad. Along the way, we will also touch on the War Crimes Tribunal and its place in postwar history.

The Manchurian Incident (1931), the establishment of a puppet state in Manchuria (19329, and the decision to leave the League of Nations (1933) changed Japan’s international trajectory. In the 1920s, Japan had been a pillar of international collaboration and multilateralism. Now it was an aggressive outsider. International condemnation of Japan’s war in China (1931-1945) and the accompanying sanctions seemed to threaten Japan’s national security. In response, Japan attacked the United States in December 1941, hoping to drive the Americans out of the Pacific long enough to secure resources for a self-sufficient empire. This did not turn out well.

In this episode, we will be looking first at developments in Japanese society, starting with the murders and coup attempts of the period of “government by assassination.” Next, we will cover the transformation of Japan’s unofficial, undeclared China conflict into an all-out war in the summer of 1937, and the effects that this had. This will lead us right up to the Japanese attack on America’s naval base at Pearl Harbor.

A bonus episode about gender roles and politics from Meiji to the 1930s, with a peek into the 1940s.

This class will look at the ups and downs of Japanese history in the first decades of the twentieth century. Japan enjoyed military triumphs, a booming and industrializing economy, international prestige, and a lively cosmopolitan culture in its cities. There was also widespread protest and anger, a massive earthquake that destroyed Tokyo, a harsh crackdown on freedom of thought and expression, and urban-rural and other disparities were enormous and toxic. Examining these years will set the stage for the long war years of the 1930s and 1940s.

The first half of this lecture looks at the political, social, and economic changes in Meiji Japan, focusing on the period from 1877 to 1895. Among other things, the second decade of Meiji witnessed the beginnings of backlash against the rapid pace of modernization and a nascent sense that something important and uniquely Japanese was being lost. To conclude, we bring Japan into the twentieth century, examining the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars (1894-1895 and 1904-1905) and their consequences.

In part 2 of our lectures on Meiji, we will begin to examine Japan’s “opening” to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, and the proactive ways that Japan engaged with this new challenge.