Book review: The Meiji Restoration

Bibliographic Data: Beasley, W. G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972.

Main Argument: The Meiji Restoration was a product of political and socioeconomic changes in the bakumatsu period in particular and the Tokugawa period in general, once the opening of the country gave it the necessary push.

( The Meiji Restoration )

Critical assessment: I just want to point out that something being "feudal" and capitalist at the same terms is basically a contradiction in terms--it is definitely so by the Marxist definitions, and arguably so by less doctrinaire definitions. More seriously, I guess I think that Beasley is mostly right in what he says in this book, but I have to disagree on the question of nationalism; or, no, not disagree, but qualify the term "nationalism," which Beasley never does; like Beth Berry, I agree that there was a sense of nation in the Tokugawa period, but I don't know that I would call the Meiji Restoration a nationalist revolution. I would, however, call it a revolution, full stop; not every revolution is world historical: viz the American Revolution, for one.

Further reading: Craig, Chôshû in the Meiji Restoration; Baxter, The Meiji Unification through the Lens of Ishikawa Prefecture; Huber, The Revolutionary Origins of Modern Japan; Kim, The Age of Visions and Arguments

Meta notes: "A little revolution, every now and then, can be a good thing."