Japan

The visit of Natsume Sōseki to London at the turn of the 20th century suggested ways of successfully combining western industrialism with ‘Japanese Spirit’.

A Japanese map produced during the Second World War encouraged children to follow the Empire's military effort, explains Kate Wiles.

Tim Stanley describes the Asama-Sansō Incident of 1972 and reveals the cyclical nature of political violence and the means of its defeat.

C.R. Boxer offers a study of Japanese isolationism between the mid-seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth century.

Richard Storry describes how the Army Mutiny of February 1936 was the climax of revolutionary nationalism in Japan. Its outcome meant action against China, and in the end led to Pearl Harbour

According to western stereotype, the Japanese at the time of the Second World War were passive and obedient automatons. Yet the realities of daily life in imperial Japan were complex and politically charged.

Geoffrey Evans describes how British and Indian forces recovered Burma from the Japanese during the Second World War.

The achievements of the Meiji regime in transforming Japan into one of the most powerful of modern states are regarded as among the most remarkable events in history. But the restoration of the Emperor and the fall of the Shogun was brought about at the cost of a fierce domestic struggle.

In the 1860s a group of the younger Samurai launched the Meiji revolution in the Emperor's name. This event, writes Henry McAleavy, helped convert Japan into a modern country, with Western fashions and techniques imposed upon the national habits of centuries.