Course Description

This lecture will provide Japanese history from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, focusing on the continuity of its nation state building and empire building. Modern Japan was a non-European state which voluntarily accomplished modernization and introduced parliamentary government. On the other hand, it was a colonial empire which ruled Asian neighbors. In this lecture, we will survey the Japanese way of introducing parliamentary government, characteristics of the Japanese empire as compared with that of Western empires, and lessons we can learn from pre-war Japan's failure of immature democracy.