Je ne sais pas si cela vous intéresse...surment pas d'ailleur...mais voici une de mes dissertations en Anthropologie et études de la Culture Japonaise. J'ai eu B+.

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Why is the Meiji Restoration so important to Japanese history? Explain with reference to social, political and economic relations in modern Japan. The Meiji Emperor was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. In the early 1870s, Japan was a feudal country, controlled by a Government which reigned more than 250 years over an isolated country. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, a political transformation occurred. Called by many Anthropologists and Historians, Restoration, this revolution has changed forever the structure of an Old Japan to a Modern Japan with social, political and economic evolutions which made the Meiji Restoration, one of the most important era to Japanese history. First of all, the ascendancy of the Tokugawa House from 1603, when Tokugawa Ieyasu acquired the title of shogun to 1867, when Tokugawa Yoshinobu surrendered it, marked the culmination of centuries of control over Japan by members of the warrior class. During this era , called the Edo Period, the Tokugawa House confirmed their hold on power by a complex structure of physical, political and economic controls over the hundred local lords (Daimyo). This government was called Bafuku. In addition, the political system of this period is often referred by many historians with the term of « feudalism ». In fact, the Tokugawa had achieved their control on the Japanese Government in 1603 by means of victories in a series of battles that brought to an end over a century of warfare among rival military houses. It was during this long period of warfare and the era of the Tokugawa’s Control on Japan that conditions most closely resembled those of high feudalism in Europe. It was also during this period that Chinese-inspired system of imperial rule over the country came to an end. Only the emperors and the court aristocracy remained ( because of the holy idea of their status). However, Ann Waswo, a Lecturer in Modern Japanese History at the University of Oxford, shows in « Modern Japanese Society:1868-1994 » (OPUS Book, Oxford University Press,1996), that the Imperial Court lived a much reduced existence under the control of Tokugawa’s Shogun. Then, Ann Waswo explains in her book the political, socials and economics situations of the Edo Era. By 1641, all the Europeans except the Dutch had been expelled from Japan. Only a little quarters in Nagasaki was created to special trading for Dutch and Chinese with the Japanese Government. No Japanese was allowed to leave the country. Christianity was declared illegal. In addition, The population was divided into four classes in a system known as mibunsei, the samurai on top (about 5% of the population) and the peasants (more than 80% of the population) on the second level. Below the peasants were the craftsmen, and even below them, on the fourth level, were the merchants. It was how social hierarchy was ruled by the Tokugawa House. However, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth Tokugawa Shogun, submitted his resignation to the Emperor in November 1867, bringing to an end over two centuries and a half of feudal government ruled by the Tokugawa House. In January 1868, the restoration of rule by the emperor was proclaimed, and by 1869 all forces loyal to the Tokugawa Ideology had been defeated. The Meiji government, during the first decade of it existence, tried to transform the economy, society and polity of Japan in ways that, according to Ann Waswo, « resembled the thrust of bourgeois liberal revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century West. ». To conceptualize the idea of « Revolution-Restoration » of Japan in 1868, we have to understand the causes of the evolution of the Japanese Society. Among Western interpreters the Canadian, E. H. Norman, in Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State (1940), saw the Restoration as a revolution carried out by lower level samurai acting against the frustrations of their positions. However, the degree of capitalist development implied the momentum of a bourgeois revolution. In addition, some Western observers saw the return of the Western Countries to the Japanese Shore ( Commodore Perry, who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854) as one of the primary cause of the Meiji Restoration. The national seclusion of the Tokugawa Politic had been a disaster for Japan. Deprived of the stimulus of foreign trade and of free contact with Europe during the industrial revolutions, made Japan in a position of economically and culturally stagnation for over 200 years ( even if some Historians showed that considerable economic and cultural development did occur during the Edo Period). Then, the results of this revolution in the latter nineteenth century were dramatic. Peter Duus shows in « The Rise of Modern Japan » (1976, Houghton Mifflin Company) that by the end of the Meiji restoration, the control of the oligarchy « was focused in a highly centralized state whose functions were carried out through Western style political, administrative and judicial institutions operating in the name of the emperor. ». In addition, the oligarchs abolished the four divisions of society( the four castes, samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants) and created the Meiji Constitution. The main ideas of the Meiji Constitution became the base of the Government Ideology. Some examples of the Constitution showed the new politic of the country with a highly centralized and bureaucratic government, a well-developed transport and communication system, a highly educated population free of feudal class restrictions, an established and rapidly growing industrial sector based on the latest technology and a powerful army and navy. In fact, Western style armed forces increase the position of Japanese state at home and abroad. Therefore, Western style financial institutions, infrastructures and factories were promoted to provide the economics foundations for international strength and influence. The government also built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. To promote industrialization, the government decided that, while it should help private business to allocate resources and to plan, the private sector was best equipped to stimulate economic growth. The greatest role of government was to help provide the economic conditions in which business could flourish. In the early Meiji period, the government built factories and shipyards that were sold to entrepreneurs at a fraction of their value. Finally, a highly efficient education system served the aim of the state and the rise of Imperialism Ideology. The Oligarchy inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan. Within a short time after 1868, the majority of Japanese went from xenophobia to xenophilia. Not only did the Japanese adopt many aspects of Western civilization such as ballroom dancing, men cutting their hair, they also adopted many Western ideas and institutions as the Meiji oligarchs pursued a policy of fukoku kyôhei (rich country, strong military) to catch up with Western countries and to gain national strength and wealth. By 1914, Japan had not only achieved revision of the unequal treaties, but also alliance with Britain and the beginnings of an empire. Japan had already been victorious in two major wars, against China (1894-1895) and Russia (1904-1905). Thus, Japan was a world power and possessor of colonies. The modern industrial sector was growing rapidly (Japan was at that time one of the world’s leading exporters of textiles). World War I brought an huge economic development and recognition of Japan’s acquisition of Great Power status. Japan became at that time, the only Asian country able to compete with the West. The Meiji Restoration was the catalyst toward industrialization in Japan that led to the rise of the island nation as a military power by 1905, under the slogan of "Enrich the country, strengthen the military". In conclusion, the Meiji period (1868-1912) was a time of changes among social, political and economic factors, in a new Modern Japan. Even if the result of changes among Japanese Society during the twentieth century, such as the Occupation after the defeat of Japan in 1945, ended some of the ideological elements established in the Meiji period. The year 1945 saw also the continuation of others. Indeed, the post war decades have witnessed efforts at the reinterpretation of state and society that are not dissimilar to the process that occurred in the late Meiji period. The sense of nation, of being Japanese, transmitted for the first time in the Meiji Era is not diminished today.The current era name in Japan is Heisei, which means, « peace inside and prosperity outward », increasing the notion of heritage from Meiji ideology. Thus, we can say that Meiji Restoration had been the detonator from the transformation of a feudal Japan to a World powerful country, which make this Era one of the most important time for Japanese History and the bases of a Modern Japan.

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