from feudalism to modern industrial society has been noted by many observers, including contemporary journalists and travelers. These early observers virtually dismissed the question by ascribing the change to a miracle or to the idea that Japan was an apt pupil learning from the master-West. E. Herbert Norman sees the rapidity and comparative ease with which Japan shifted from a feudal to an industrialized economy as being explained by two fortuitous circumstances: 1) the internal crisis of feudal society; and 2) pressure from the Western nations. The two became juxtaposed with what Norman calls "the forcing of the closed door," or the effort of the West to open Japan to trade and other intercourse. Within Japan, various groups were turning against a regime which they believed was responsible for the chaos and distress they saw all around them. When a threat from abroad developed, it is believed that enemies of the feudal state used this fact as a lever to overturn it. Japan had long benefited from a fact of geography. Japan was the farthest removed of the Asiatic states from the reach of the great European naval powers:
Nevertheless it was clear to both the western traders and Japanese statesmen that Japan, by relying on this accident of geography, could not forever avoid the day when some power would wait outside the closed gates, demanding an answer to the imperious command that Japan either be opened to world trade and intercourse or suffer the fate of India or China."
Such an effort to open Japan was led first by the Russians and then by England, France, and the United States. It was probably inevitable that this would take place. The European powers moved slowly but inexorably toward Japan, with first India and then China absorbing their interests. Competition between the great shipping interests of Britain and the United States led eventually to assaults on Japan as a trading candidate. Britain was long t...