History of Civilization: The Japanese Experience

A Short History of Japan

'The Japanese Experience' is an authoritative, lucid and concise history of Japan from the sixth century to the present day. It is the history of a society and a culture with a distinct sense of itself, one of the few nations never conquered by a foreign power in historic times (until the twentieth century) and the home of the longest-reigning imperial dynasty that still survives. Regarded as a minor Asian state until the late nineteenth century, Japan transformed itself into a major power in the twentieth century.

W G Beasley, a leading authority on Japan, describes how the arrival of Buddhism in the sixth century changed Japan from a primitive kingdom to one with a substantially Chinese-style society. By the eleventh century the Chinese element was waning and the country was entering a long and essentially Japanese fuedal period - with two rulers, an emperor and a Shogun - which was to last until the nineteenth century. In 1868 a revolution, the Meiji Restoration, brought to power men dedicated to the pursuit of national wealth and strength, as the West defined them. Although a bid for empire ended in disaster, the years after 1945 saw an "economic miracle" which brought spectacular wealth to Japan and the Japanese people, as well as the Westernisation of much of Japanese life.