Modern Japan

Integrating political events with the cultural, economic, and intellectual movements of each period, Modern Japan offers a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history for students and general readers. A summary of Japans early history, emphasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present. The fourth edition has been revised throughout and now includes the latest scholarship on feudal women, samurai tactics, Chonin education, political reforms in the late Tokugawa period, foreigners in Nagasaki during the Meiji Restoration, and early feminism in the later Meiji period. Bringing Japanese history up to date, the final chapter details current issues, including the impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations, the recent controversies over Japanese war crimes and the so-called Comfort Women, and the Yasukuni War Memorial.