The Industrialization and Modernization of Japan

Japan as a World Power Player has only been on the international scene since 1853, which was the year that US Naval Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry parked his fleet of gunboats in Tokyo Bay and ordered the reclusive Emperor to abandon its 250 years of splendid isolation and accept the philosophy of the West. Seldom has a country's historical record had such a clear and jolting turning point (Mallaby, 1994, J-3).

Before that historic year, Japan was literally frozen in feudalism, a country where lords were bound to each other by ties of vassalage and where peasants surrendered part of their crops as feudal dues. After that year began a period of "Western awareness" unequaled in any study of the importance of economic geography. This discussion will trace the relentless modernization and industrialism of Japan by dealing with the country's turning points while also attempting to show the cause-effect nature of Japanese history since 1853, which basically ignores the Japanese nation's previous 2,000 years of history.

Four time periods, or epochs, have been selected for the purposes of this analysis. Each has been provided with a descriptive name in order to easily identify it over the course of the analysis. It should be noted, however, that the epoch names are subjective, being an attempt to arrive at some semblance of understanding concerning this country that in less than fifty years has gone from infrastructure destruction

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ton, Chang, & Shari, 1996, 22). The Aggressive Epoch Beginning in the 1930s, the Japanese began a series of wars with its Asian neighbors, seeking room to grow. These Wars were a direct result of Japan's success in the Asian world, since it was, of all Pacific Rim nations including China, the most powerful and educated. It was also the most crowded per square mile. Several Japanese scholars relied on the philosophical works of several American presidents in the 1800s who developed a construct for aggression called the Manifest Destiny and applied it quite well. The nation's major tactical error in adopting this philosophy was assuming that control of America was part of its Manifest Destiny, which prompted the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Apology Epoch Following the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945, which effectively destroyed most of Japan's infrastructure, and a comprehensive treaty of surrender which effectively destroyed much of the freedom of movement the Japanese had enjoyed in its rapid modernization and industrialization, the Japanese government set about rebuilding. This time, the business interests took the reins, and the nation turned inward, concentrating on developing a strong government-industry
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Approximate Word count = 2320
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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