Andrea J. Horbinski (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ahorbinski) wrote2014-03-04 02:36 pm
ahorbinski) wrote2014-03-04 02:36 pm
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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.
Historiographical Engagement: Japanese scholarship
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples Beasley reviews the historiography of the Restoration, which consists principally of the arguments over whether it was a political or a socioeconomic change, and indeed whether it mattered at all; at least one scholar had argued that the Meiji reforms merely extended and successfully brought about the "absolutism" of the Tenpo reforms in the early 1840s. There is also the question of significance, or where the weight of consequences lay: was it in Meiji, with the achievement of a place in the international order, or in Taisho, with the achievement of industrial capitalism? Finally, was it a renovation or a revolution?
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Beasley seems to be working, above all, from the assumption that nationalism already existed as such prior to the bakumatsu era, viz: "nationalism had a double function in Japan in the twenty years after 1853: first, that it provided a motive compelling men to act; second, that it shaped their aims and priorities" (416). However, and to his credit, Beasley does not think this is the whole story; the social and economic changes that occurred over the course of the Tokugawa period conditioned what happened by their interaction with "nationalism and the foreign threat" (ibid). Beasley argues that the social changes of Tokugawa were most felt after the Restoration proper, in the reforms of 1868-73 which for the most part brought legal codes closer to actual de facto reality, particularly in terms of village structure, and in the recognition that good government needed "men of talent;" all told, these social changes provided the reason for the Meiji oligarchs turning "away from feudalism as well as from the bakufu," which in turn led to the dismantling of samurai privilege and the expansion of Japan's ruling elites to include the children of landlords by the end of Meiji (411-12). Asserting that peasants were not involved in the Restoration and that the Restoration was not about 'democracy,' Beasley asserts four things:
1. "the class composition of the politically active minority in late Tokugawa Japan already reflected the results of economic change in that it did not accord with the formal allocation of authority in society" (420);
2. "in the various proposals for curing the country's ills after the conclusion of the treaties, there was usually an element of class or group interest, though not necessarily a dominant one" (420-21);
3. "the men who emerged as leaders in succession to the reforming lords and dissident samurai, mostly after 1864…were nearly all lower or middle samurai, not high enough in the feudal hierarchy to be bent on preserving it, nor excluded from it to the point of wanting above all to break it down" (421);
4. "Victory over the Tokugawa made these men responsible for government, that is, for implementing on a national scale the policies that would bring Japan 'wealth and strength'" (ibid);
5. "several factors came together to ensure that the society which emerged at the end of these years would be a capitalist one" (422).
NB: the crucial thing about the SatsuChô alliance was that it combined the two strongest fiefs against the Tokugawa and united their policies of "wealth and power" (Satsuma) and "destroying the bakufu" (Chôshû).
So, the million yen question: was the Meiji Restoration a revolution? Beasley says no, because it "lacked the avowed social purpose that gives the 'great' revelutions of history a certain common character" (423) and because of the society that it brought about, which Beasley characterizes as "feudal" and "capitalist" at the same time. Having decided that it was not bourgeois, peasant, absolutist, or rightist, he declares that by process of elimination it must be a "nationalist revolution…thereby giving recognition to the nature of the emotions that above all brought it about" (424).
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."
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.
Historiographical Engagement: Japanese scholarship
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples Beasley reviews the historiography of the Restoration, which consists principally of the arguments over whether it was a political or a socioeconomic change, and indeed whether it mattered at all; at least one scholar had argued that the Meiji reforms merely extended and successfully brought about the "absolutism" of the Tenpo reforms in the early 1840s. There is also the question of significance, or where the weight of consequences lay: was it in Meiji, with the achievement of a place in the international order, or in Taisho, with the achievement of industrial capitalism? Finally, was it a renovation or a revolution?
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Beasley seems to be working, above all, from the assumption that nationalism already existed as such prior to the bakumatsu era, viz: "nationalism had a double function in Japan in the twenty years after 1853: first, that it provided a motive compelling men to act; second, that it shaped their aims and priorities" (416). However, and to his credit, Beasley does not think this is the whole story; the social and economic changes that occurred over the course of the Tokugawa period conditioned what happened by their interaction with "nationalism and the foreign threat" (ibid). Beasley argues that the social changes of Tokugawa were most felt after the Restoration proper, in the reforms of 1868-73 which for the most part brought legal codes closer to actual de facto reality, particularly in terms of village structure, and in the recognition that good government needed "men of talent;" all told, these social changes provided the reason for the Meiji oligarchs turning "away from feudalism as well as from the bakufu," which in turn led to the dismantling of samurai privilege and the expansion of Japan's ruling elites to include the children of landlords by the end of Meiji (411-12). Asserting that peasants were not involved in the Restoration and that the Restoration was not about 'democracy,' Beasley asserts four things:
1. "the class composition of the politically active minority in late Tokugawa Japan already reflected the results of economic change in that it did not accord with the formal allocation of authority in society" (420);
2. "in the various proposals for curing the country's ills after the conclusion of the treaties, there was usually an element of class or group interest, though not necessarily a dominant one" (420-21);
3. "the men who emerged as leaders in succession to the reforming lords and dissident samurai, mostly after 1864…were nearly all lower or middle samurai, not high enough in the feudal hierarchy to be bent on preserving it, nor excluded from it to the point of wanting above all to break it down" (421);
4. "Victory over the Tokugawa made these men responsible for government, that is, for implementing on a national scale the policies that would bring Japan 'wealth and strength'" (ibid);
5. "several factors came together to ensure that the society which emerged at the end of these years would be a capitalist one" (422).
NB: the crucial thing about the SatsuChô alliance was that it combined the two strongest fiefs against the Tokugawa and united their policies of "wealth and power" (Satsuma) and "destroying the bakufu" (Chôshû).
So, the million yen question: was the Meiji Restoration a revolution? Beasley says no, because it "lacked the avowed social purpose that gives the 'great' revelutions of history a certain common character" (423) and because of the society that it brought about, which Beasley characterizes as "feudal" and "capitalist" at the same time. Having decided that it was not bourgeois, peasant, absolutist, or rightist, he declares that by process of elimination it must be a "nationalist revolution…thereby giving recognition to the nature of the emotions that above all brought it about" (424).
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."