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The Making of Modern Japan cover

History

History

The Making of Modern Japan

Marius B. Jansen

Marius B. Jansen's history of Japan from the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate around 1600 to the late twentieth century. It traces how a decentralised early modern order became an industrial nation and empire, then a defeated and occupied state, and finally a postwar democracy and economic power, giving weight to social and intellectual change as well as politics.

Prerequisites: An introductory course on East Asian history or on modern Japan.

Difficulty Level
Advanced
Academic Level
Undergraduate
japanmodern japantokugawameiji restorationeast asian history

01 / Reading Guide

Reading Guide

Citation

Jansen, M. B. (2002). The Making of Modern Japan. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a single-author history of Japan from 1600 to the late twentieth century, about 870 pages of text in twenty chapters, followed by further reading, notes and an index. The publisher describes it as organised around three periods of wrenching change: the imposition of order by the Tokugawa shogunate, the opening of the ports in the nineteenth century, and defeat in the Second World War. Within that frame it gives space to social and intellectual history, and to the writers, artists and thinkers as well as political leaders.

Chapters 1–3: Sekigahara; The Tokugawa State; Foreign Relations

The book opens with the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, moves to the structure of the Tokugawa state, and then to Japan's foreign relations under the shogunate.

Chapters 4–7: Status Groups; Urbanization and Communications; The Development of a Mass Culture; Education, Thought, and Religion

Four thematic chapters on Tokugawa society: the social orders, cities and the networks that connected them, the growth of a mass culture, and education, thought and religion. According to the publisher's description, these chapters cover the emergence of village and castle towns with consumer populations and the diffusion of samurai values in culture.

Chapters 8–10: Change, Protest, and Reform; The Opening to the World; The Tokugawa Fall

The late Tokugawa chapters turn from stable structures to pressure for change: reform and protest, the arrival of the outside world in the nineteenth century, and the end of the shogunate.

Chapters 11–14: The Meiji Revolution; Building the Meiji State; Imperial Japan; Meiji Culture

The Meiji section follows the revolution of 1868, the construction of the new state, Japan as an imperial power, and the cultural life of the period. The publisher mentions the making of the modern state, the adaptation of Western models, growing international trade and industrialisation among its themes.

Chapters 15–18: Japan between the Wars; Taisho Culture and Society; The China War; The Pacific War

The twentieth-century chapters cover the interwar period and its society and culture, followed by the war in China and the Pacific War.

Chapters 19–20: The Yoshida Years; Japan Since Independence

The last two chapters treat the Occupation-era and early postwar period, associated with Yoshida, and the decades since the restoration of independence. The publisher mentions the occupation reforms imposed by General MacArthur.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–7: Tokugawa Japan

  • Tokugawa state: the shogunate's system of order established after Sekigahara.
  • Status groups: the social divisions of Tokugawa society.
  • Mass culture: the commercial and popular culture that grew in the cities.

Chapters 8–14: From Tokugawa fall to Meiji state

  • Opening to the world: the end of seclusion in the nineteenth century.
  • Meiji Revolution and Meiji state: the replacement of the shogunate and the building of a modern state.

Chapters 15–20: Twentieth century

  • Interwar and wartime Japan: the years between the wars, the China War and the Pacific War.
  • Postwar settlement: the Yoshida years and Japan since independence.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

  • Long chronological sweep. The twenty chapters carry a single narrative from 1600 to the end of the twentieth century, so that readers can see how early modern structures relate to later changes. Reviewers quoted by the publisher call it elegant, lucid and a distillation of more than fifty years' engagement with Japan.
  • Social and cultural history. Chapters on status groups, urbanisation, mass culture, education and religion, Meiji culture and Taisho culture and society sit alongside the political narrative. Reviewers highlight its attention to writers, artists and thinkers and to the experiences of individual Japanese.
  • Interpretive balance. Quoted reviews note that it takes account of the views of other scholars, Japanese and Western, and that it sets Japan within its relations with the outside world rather than treating it in isolation.
  • Readability. The reviewers repeatedly stress that it is readable and suitable as a text for survey courses.

Limitations

  • Length. At more than 800 pages it is long for a single-semester course, and the chapters will usually have to be selected.
  • Political-narrative backbone. The book is organised chiefly as a chronological narrative; readers who want an argument-driven or thematic treatment of a single question will need other works.
  • Date. The first edition appeared in 2000 (the paperback in 2002), so the account of the late twentieth century stops before later developments.

Where It Fits in the Course

Jansen is the long narrative on modern Japan in the East Asian history list, with a Japanese focus. Charles Holcombe's A History of East Asia and Ebrey and Walthall's East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History are one-volume surveys of the whole region and are the better starting points for readers who need context for China, Korea and Vietnam. Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China and Rana Mitter's Modern China: A Very Short Introduction are the natural comparisons on the Chinese side for the same modern period, while F. W. Mote's Imperial China 900–1800 covers an earlier period of Chinese history.

Read Jansen after a regional survey to follow Japan in depth, and alongside Spence if the aim is to compare how Japan and China met the nineteenth-century world.

How to Use This Book

It suits undergraduates in a course on modern Japan or East Asian history, and general readers who want a full account. The prerequisites are modest: an introductory course on East Asian history is useful but not essential given the narrative style.

A practical reading plan:

  • Core: Chapters 1–3 for the Tokugawa settlement, Chapters 9–13 for the end of the shogunate and the Meiji transformation, and Chapters 15–20 for the twentieth century.
  • Social and cultural history: Chapters 4–7 and Chapters 14 and 16 can be taken as a group for courses with a social or cultural emphasis.
  • Optional: Chapter 8 as a bridge between the stable Tokugawa order and its end, and the further reading at the back for essay topics.
  • Alongside: use maps and a chronology of the period to keep track of the shifts between regimes; read short primary sources from each era to supplement the narrative.