Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-g9frx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T16:20:24.099Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Meiji Japan and Public History: Ports, Public Memory, Gateways to Understanding through Photography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ian Austin  and
Alexander Best
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The success of the Meiji regime elite in placing Japan on the road to unprecedented rapid economic development is for all to see in the public history displayed within the port districts of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki. Silence marks the history of how important these port-rail-communications developments were to the restoration of Japan's own sovereignty and the simultaneous stripping away of others. This work explores the state and left-unstated reasoning behind Meiji Japan's elevation to become the first non-western power utilising the authors photography of the public history of Japanese ports and their indispensable rail and communications connections.

Keywords

Meiji Japanunequal treatieswestern powersinfrastructure developmentcolonialism
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 14 , July 2022 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2022

References

Andressen, Curtis. (2002). A Short History of Japan: From Samurai to Sony. Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest NSW.Google Scholar
Auslin, Michael R. (2004). Negotiating with Imperialism The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beasley, W.G. (1988). “Meiji Political Institutions”. in Duus, Peter. ed. 1988. The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5 The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 618–673.Google Scholar
Beasley, W.G. (1995). The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Bix, Herbert P. (2000). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. HartpersCollins: New York.Google Scholar
Campbell, Edwina S. (2016). Citizen of a Wider Commonwealth: Ulysses S. Grant's Post-presidential Diplomacy. Carbondale, Il. Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Rondo. (1997). A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caprio, Mark. (2020) Oct 15. “To Adopt a Small or Large State Mentality: The Iwakura Mission and Japan's Meiji-era Foreign Policy Dilemma”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. 18, 20, 3, Article ID 5497.Google Scholar
Chang, Ha-Joon. (1996). The Political Economy of Industry Policy. 2nd ed. New York: St. Marin's Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Ha-Joon. (2002). Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. London: Anthem Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Han-Yu and Myer, Ramon H.. (1963) Aug. “Japanese Colonial Development Policy in Taiwan, 1895-1906”. The Journal of Asian Studies. 22(4). pp. 433–449.Google Scholar
Ch'oe, Yong. (2015) Mar 2. “Japan's 1905 Incorporation of Dokdo/Takeshima: a Historical Perspective”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. 13. 9. 3. Article ID 4290.Google Scholar
Cohen, Mark. (2014). “The political process of the revolutionary samurai: a comparative reconsideration of Japan's Meiji Restoration”. Theory and Society. 43. 2: 139–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duus, Peter. ed. (1988). The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5 The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Duus, Peter. (1995). The Abacus and the Sword The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910. Berkley: The University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. (2001). The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. (2004). Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Penguin Books: New York.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. (2017). The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power. Allen Lane and imprint of Penguin Books: Milton Keynes.Google Scholar
Free, Dan. (2008). Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914 Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan. Tuttle Publishing: Tokyo, Rutland, Vermont, Singapore.Google Scholar
Fukui, Haruhiro. (1992). “The Japanese State and Economic Development: Profile of a Nationalist-Paternalist Capitalist State”. in Appelbaum, Richard P. and Henderson, Jeffrey. eds. 1992. States And Development in the Asian Pacific Rim. London: Sage Publications. pp. 199–225.Google Scholar
Giffard, Sydney. (1994). Japan Among the Powers 1890-1990. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Michael J. (2017). By More than Providence Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783. A Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and Warren I. Cohn Book on American-East Asian Relations. Columbia University Press: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holcombe, Charles. (2011). A History of East Asia From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Hoshi, T., & Kashyap, A. K. (2001). Corporate financing and governance in Japan: The road to the future. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Iokibe, Makoto and Minohara, Tosh. (2017) English Edition (Japan original 2008). “Chapter 1: American Encounters Japan, 1836-94”. in Iokibe, Makoto and Tosh Minohara, Editor and English translation editor respectively. (2017) English Edition (Japanese original 2008). The History of U.S.-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iriye, Akira. (1995). “Japan's drive to great-power status”. in Jansen, Marius B. ed. 1995. The Emergence of Meiji Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 268–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, Marius B. ed. (1995). The Emergence of Meiji Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. (1982). MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. (1995). Japan: Who Governs? – The Rise of the Developmental State. London: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Kasza, Gregory J. (2018) June. “Gerschenkron, Amsden, and Japan: the State in Late Development”. Japanese Journal of Political Science. 19 (2): 146–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keene, Donald. (2002). Emperor of Japan Meiji and His World 1852-1912. New York: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Kowner, Rotem. (2022) June 15. “Time to Remember, Time to Forget: The Battle of Tsushima in Japanese Collective Memory since 1905”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. Volume 20 | Issue 12 | Number 3. Article ID 5716.Google Scholar
Kunitake, Kume. (1871-73). The Iwakura Embassy 1871-73: A True Account of the Ambassador Extrordinary & Plenipotentiary's Journey of Observation Through the United States and Europe. Vol. 1‐5. (Editors-in-Chief Healey, Graham & Tsuzuki, Chushichi, 2002: Akira, Tanaka. (2002). “Introduction”).Google Scholar
LaFeber, Walter. (1997). The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Low, M. and Gooday, G. J. (1998). “Technology transfer and cultural exchange: Western scientists and engineers encounter late Tokugawa and Meiji Japan”. Osiris 13 99–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masons, R.H.P. and Caiger, J.G.. (1972). “The Meiji Era and Policies of Modernisation”. A History of Japan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. pp. 213–255.Google Scholar
Miyoshi, Masao. (2005). Foreword by Carol Gluck. As We Saw Them The First Japanese Embassy to the United States. Philadelphia: Paul Dr Books.Google Scholar
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. (1994). The Technological Transformation of Japan: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-first Century. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Muchlhoff, Katharina. (2014). “The economic cost of sleaze or how replacing samurai with bureacrats boosted regional growth in Meiji Japan”. Cliometrica. 8: 201–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Najita, Tetsuo. (1974). Japan: The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Patrick, Hugh T. (1965). External Equilibrium and Internal Convertibility: Financial Policy in Meiji Japan. The Journal of Economic History. 25. 2 (June): 187–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pilling, David. (2014). Bending Adversity Japan and the Art of Survival. New York: The Press Press.Google Scholar
Plung, Dylan J. (2021) Apr 15. “The ”Unrelated“ Spirits of Aoyama Cemetery: A 21st Century Reckoning with the Foreign Employees of the Meiji Period”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. 19, 8, 1. Article ID 5567.Google Scholar
Pyle, Kenneth B. (2007). Japan Rising The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Reischauer, Edwin O. and Craig, Albert M.. (1989). Japan: Tradition and Transformation. St Leonard: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Samuels, Richard J. (1994). Rich Nation Strong Army: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sims, Richard. (2001). Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation: 1868–2000. London: Hurst & Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuman, Michael. (2009). The Miracle The Epic Story of Asia's Quest for Wealth. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Studwell, Richard. (2013). How Asia Works Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Sukehiro, Hirakawa (translated by Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi). (1988). “Japan's Turn to the West”. in Duus, Peter. ed. (1988). The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5 The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 432–498.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Chuhei. (1994). Origins of Economic Thought in Modern Japan. New York: Routledge Press.Google Scholar
Takii, Kazuhiro (translated by Takechi Manabu, edited by Murray, Patricia). (2014). Ito Hirobumi Japan's First Prime Minister and the Father of the Meiji Constitution. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Tang, John. (2011) Sept. “Technological leadership and late development: evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868-1912”. Economic History Review. 64, No. 1: pp. 99–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, John. (2014) Sept. “Railroad Expansion and Industrialization: Evidence from Meiji Japan”. The Journal of Economic History. 74, No. 3: pp. 863–886.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teramoto, Yasutoshi and Minohara, Tosh. (2017) English Edition (Japanese original 2008). “Chapter 2: The Emergence of Japan on the Global Stage, 1895-1908. in Iokibe, Makoto and Tosh Minohara, Editor and English translation editor respectively. 2017 English Edition (Japan original 2008). The History of U.S.-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinello, , (2021), Mar 15. “Early Meiji Diplomacy Viewed through the Lens of the International Treaties Culminating in the Annexation of the Ryukus”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. 19. 6. 2. Article ID 5558.Google Scholar
Walthall, Anne. (2018). “The Meiji Restoration Seen from English Speaking Countries”. Japanese Studies. 38. 3:363–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yasuba, Yasukichi and Dhiravegin, Likhit. (1985). “Initial Conditions, Institutional Changes, Policy, and their Consequences: Siam and Japan, 1850-1914.” in Ohkawa, Kazushi, Gustav Ranis and Larry Meissner. eds. 1985. Japan and the Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yoshitake, Oka. (Translated by Fraser, Andrew and Murray, Patricia). (1986). Five Political Leaders of Modern Japan: Ito Hirobumi, Okuma Shigenobu, Hara Takashi, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and Saionji Kimmochi. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.Google Scholar
Young, John Russell. (1877, 1878, 1879). Around the World with General Grant. A Narrative of the Visit of General U.S. Grant, Ex-President of the United States, to Various Countries in Europe, Asia and Africa in 1877, 1878, 1879 to which added Certain Conversations with General Grant on Questions Connected with American Politics and History. Volume II. New York: Subscription Book Department. The American News Company.Google Scholar
Vlastos, Stephen. (1995). “Opposition movements in early Meiji, 1868-1885”. in Jansen, Marius B. ed. 1995. The Emergence of Meiji Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohar, Ayelet. (2020), Oct 15. “Introduction: Race and Empire in Meiji Japan”. The Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus. 18. 20. 2. Article ID 5496.Google Scholar