History of Japan
Periods Paleolithic before 14,000 BC Jōmon 14,000–300 BC Yayoi 300 BC – 250 AD Kofun 250–538 Asuka 538–710 Nara 710–794 Heian 794–1185 Kamakura 1185–1333 Kenmu Restoration 1333–1336 Muromachi (Ashikaga) Nanboku-chō Sengoku 1336–1573 Azuchi–Momoyama Nanban trade 1568–1603 Edo (Tokugawa) Bakumatsu 1603–1868 Meiji Restoration 1868–1912 Taishō World War I 1912–1926 Shōwa Financial crisis Militarism Pacific War Occupation Post-occupation 1926–1989 Heisei Lost Decade 1989–present
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Human habitation in the Japanese archipelago can be traced back to prehistoric times. The Jōmon period, named after its "cord-marked" pottery, was followed by the Yayoi in the first millennium BC, when new technologies were introduced from continental Asia. During this period, in the first century AD, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han. Between the third century and the eighth century, Japan's many kingdoms and tribes gradually came to be unified under a centralized government, nominally controlled by the Emperor. The imperial dynasty established at this time continues to reign over Japan to this day. In 794, a new imperial capital was established at Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto), marking the beginning of the Heian period, which lasted until 1185. The Heian period is considered a golden age of classical Japanese culture. Japanese religious life from this time and onwards was a mix of Buddhism, which had been introduced via Korea, and native religious practices known as Shinto.

Over the following centuries the power of the emperor and the imperial court gradually declined and passed to the military clans and their armies of samurai warriors. The Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoritomo emerged victorious from the Genpei War of 1180–85. After seizing power, Yoritomo set up his capital in Kamakura and took the title of shogun, which literally means "general". In 1274 and 1281, the Kamakura shogunate withstood two Mongol invasions, but in 1333 it was toppled by a rival claimant to the shogunate, ushering in the Muromachi period. During the Muromachi period regional warlords known as daimyō grew in power at the expense of the shogun. Eventually, Japan descended into a period of civil war. Over the course of the late sixteenth century, Japan was reunified under the leadership of the daimyō Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After Hideyoshi's death in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power and was appointed shogun by the emperor. The Tokugawa shogunate, which governed from Edo (modern Tokyo), presided over a prosperous and peaceful era known as the Edo period (1600–1868). The Tokugawa shogunate imposed a strict class system upon Japanese society and cut off almost all contact with the outside world.

The American Perry Expedition in 1853–54 ended Japan's seclusion; this in turn contributed to the fall of the shogunate and the return of power to the emperor in 1868. The new national leadership of the following Meiji period transformed their isolated, underdeveloped island country into an empire that closely followed Western models and became a world power. Although democracy developed during the Taishō period (1912–26), Japan's powerful military had great autonomy and overruled Japan's civilian leaders in the 1920s and 1930s. The military invaded Manchuria in 1931, and from 1937 the conflict escalated into a prolonged war with China. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to war with the United States and its allies. Japan's forces soon became overextended, but the military held out in spite of US air attacks that inflicted severe damage on population centers. In August 1945 the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria made it possible for the reigning emperor, Hirohito, to force the military to surrender.

The Allies occupied Japan until 1952. Under the supervision of the Allied occupation forces a new constitution was enacted in 1947 that transformed Japan into a parliamentary monarchy. After 1955, Japan enjoyed very high economic growth, and became a world economic powerhouse. Since the 1990s, economic stagnation has been a major issue. An earthquake and tsunami in 2011 caused massive economic dislocations and a serious nuclear disaster.

Prehistoric and ancient Japan[edit]

Paleolithic and Jōmon period[edit]

Modern humans arrived in southern east Asia 60,000 years ago.^[1] It is likely that hominids first reached Japan hundreds of thousands of years ago^[2] by crossing the land bridges that have periodically formed, linking the archipelago to the continent at Korea in the southwest and Sakhalin in the north. The earliest firm evidence is of early Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from 40,000 years ago, when Japan was separated from the continent. Edge-ground axes dating to 32–38,000 years ago, found in 224 sites in Honshu and Kyushu, are unlike anything found in neighbouring areas of continental Asia,^[3] and have been proposed as evidence for the first Homo sapiens in Japan; watercraft appear to have been in use in this period.^[4] The earliest skeletal remains, in Okinawa ('Minatogawa Man') and human skeletons in Ishigaki, date to 16–20,000 years ago.^[5][6]

The Jōmon period (縄文 時代, Jōmon jidai^?) is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 12,000 BC^[7] (in some cases dates as early as 14,500 BC are given^[8]) to about 800 BC.^[9] Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture that reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. The name "cord-marked" was first applied by the American scholar Edward S. Morse who discovered shards of pottery in 1877 and subsequently translated it into Japanese as jōmon.^[10] The pottery style characteristic of the first phases of Jōmon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay.^[11]

Yayoi period[edit]

New technologies and modes of living took over from the Jōmon culture, spreading from northern Kyushu. The date of the change was until recently thought to be around 400 BC,^[12][13] but radio-carbon evidence suggests a date up to 500 years earlier, between 1,000 and 800 BC.^[2][9] The period was named after a district in Tokyo where a new, unembellished style of pottery was discovered in 1884. Though hunting and foraging continued, the Yayoi period brought a new reliance on agriculture.^[2] Bronze and iron weapons and tools were imported from China and Korea; such tools were later also produced in Japan.^[14] The Yayoi period also saw the introduction of weaving and silk production,^[15] glassmaking^[16] and new techniques of woodworking.^[2]

The population of Japan began to increase rapidly, perhaps with a 10-fold rise over the Jōmon. Calculations of the population size have varied from 1.5 to 4.5 million by the end of the Yayoi.^[17] Skeletal remains from the late Jōmon period reveal a deterioration in already poor standards of health and nutrition, in contrast to Yayoi archaeological sites where there are large structures suggestive of grain storehouses. This change was accompanied by an increase in both the stratification of society and tribal warfare, indicated by segregated gravesites and military fortifications.^[2] One particularly large and well-known Yayoi village is the Yoshinogari site that began to be excavated by archaeologists in the late-1980s.^[18][19]

The Yayoi technologies originated on the Asian mainland. There is debate among scholars as to what extent their spread was accomplished by means of migration or simply a diffusion of ideas, or a combination of both. The migration theory is supported by genetic and linguistic studies.^[2][20] Hanihara Kazurō has suggested that the annual immigrant influx from the continent ranged from 350 to 3,000.^[21] Genetically, modern Japanese people are most similar to the Yayoi people, whereas Japan's Ainu are, according to the historian Kenneth Henshall, likely to be the direct descendants of the Jōmon. It took time for the Yayoi people and their descendants to fully displace the Jōmon, who continued to exist in northern Honshu until the eighth century AD.^[20]

During the Yayoi period the Yayoi tribes gradually coalesced into a number of kingdoms. The earliest written work of history to mention Japan, the Book of Han completed around 82 AD, states that Japan, referred to as Wa, was divided into one hundred kingdoms. A later Chinese work of history, the Wei Zhi, states that by 240 AD one powerful kingdom had gained ascendancy over the others. According to the Wei Zhi, this kingdom was called Yamatai and was ruled by Queen Himiko. Modern historians dispute the location of Yamatai and the accuracy of its depiction in the Wei Zhi.^[20]

Kofun period (c. 250–538)[edit]

During the subsequent Kofun period, most of Japan gradually unified under a single kingdom. The symbol of the growing power of Japan's new leaders was the kofun burial mounds they constructed from around 250 onwards.^[22] Many were of massive scale, such as the Daisenryō Kofun (ja), a 486 m-long keyhole-shaped burial mound that took huge teams of laborers fifteen years to complete.^[23] The kofun were often surrounded by and filled with numerous haniwa clay sculptures, often in the shape of warriors and horses.^[22]

The center of the unified state was Yamato in the Kinai region of central Japan.^[22] The Yamato state extended its power across Japan through a combination of military conquest and co-opting local Uji clans into the ruling aristocracy.^[22][23] The rulers of the state were a hereditary line of monarchs, later known as "emperors", who still reign as the world's longest surviving imperial dynasty.^[22] Nevertheless, throughout the large majority of Japanese history the emperors have been figurehead rulers holding little real power.^{[24][clarification needed]}

These leaders sought and received formal diplomatic recognition from China, and Chinese accounts record five successive such leaders as the Five kings of Wa.^[23] Craftsmen and scholars from the Three Kingdoms of Korea played an important role in transmitting continental technologies, writing systems, and administrative skills to Japan during this period.^[22][23][25]

Classical Japan[edit]

Asuka period (538–710)[edit]

The Asuka period began in 538 with the introduction of the Buddhist religion from Korean kingdom of Baekje. Since then, Buddhism has coexisted with Japan's native Shinto.^[24][26][27] The period draws its name from its de facto imperial capital, Asuka, in the Kinai region.^[26]

The Buddhist Soga clan took over the government in 587 and controlled Japan from behind the scenes for nearly sixty years.^[28] Prince Shōtoku, an advocate of Buddhism and the Soga cause who was partially of Soga descent, served as regent and de facto leader of Japan from 594 to 622.^[29] Shōtoku authored the Seventeen-article constitution, a Confucian-inspired code of conduct for officials and citizens, and attempted to introduce a merit-based civil service called the Cap and Rank System. In a letter to the Emperor of China in 607, Shōtoku refers to Japan as "the land of the rising sun", and by 670 a variant of this expression, Nihon, established itself as the official name of the nation, which has persisted to this day.^[24][29][30]

In 645 the Soga clan were overthrown in a coup launched by Prince Naka no Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the Fujiwara clan.^[31] Their government devised and implemented the far-reaching Taika Reforms. The reforms nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation.^[27][31] Subsequently the Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between two rivals to the throne, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms, culminating in the promulgation of the Taihō Code. The Code consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central government and its subordinate local governments.^[31][32] These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.^[32]

Nara period (710–794)[edit]

In 710 the government moved to a grandiose new capital constructed at Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara), constructed in a grid pattern that was modeled on Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang dynasty.^[33] The period is noted for its major literary accomplishments. The first two books produced in Japan, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicle legendary accounts of Japan's beginnings and recount the history of the ruling imperial family that, the accounts claim, descended directly from the gods. There soon followed the earliest extant Japanese collections of Chinese poetry (the Kaifūsō) and Japanese poetry (the Man'yōshū).^[34]

During this period, Japan suffered a series of natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts, famines, and outbreaks of disease, such as a smallpox epidemic that killed over a quarter of Japan's population. Emperor Shōmu, who reigned from 724 to 749, feared that his own lack of piousness caused the trouble, and so increased the government's promotion of Buddhism, including the construction of the Tōdai-ji Temple.^[35] The funds needed to build this temple were raised in part by the influential Buddhist monk Gyōki, and once completed it was used by the Chinese monk Ganjin as an ordination site.^[36] Japan nevertheless entered a phase of population decline that continued well into the subsequent Heian period.^[37]

Heian period (794–1185)[edit]

In 784, the capital moved briefly to Nagaoka-kyō, then moved again in 794 to Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto); this remained the capital until 1868.^[38] At Heian-kyō the imperial court was a vibrant center of high art and culture.^[39] Its literary accomplishments were especially noteworthy, including the poetry collection Kokinshū, the Tosa Diary, and Sei Shōnagon's collection of miscellany entitled The Pillow Book.^[39][40][41] The Tale of Genji, an early eleventh-century work by Murasaki Shikibu, is considered the supreme masterpiece of Japanese literature.^[42] The appearance of the kana syllabaries was part of a general trend of declining Chinese influence during the Heian period. The Japanese missions to Tang China ended during the ninth century and thereafter Japan developed more typically Japanese forms of art and poetry.^[39] A major architectural achievement, apart from Heian-kyō itself, was the temple of Byōdō-in built in 1053 in Uji.^[43]

Political power within the imperial court itself soon passed from the Emperor to the Fujiwara clan, a family of court nobles who had been close to the imperial family for centuries. In 858 Fujiwara no Yoshifusa had himself declared sesshō ("regent") to the underage emperor. His son Fujiwara no Mototsune created the office of kampaku, which could rule in the place of an adult reigning emperor. Fujiwara no Michinaga, a skilled statesman who became kampaku in 996, governed during the height of the Fujiwara clan's power and had four of his daughters married to Japanese emperors.^[39][44] The Fujiwara clan held on to power until 1086, when Emperor Shirakawa ceded the throne to his son Emperor Horikawa but continued to exercise political power, establishing the practice of cloistered rule.^[45] Cloistered rule meant that the reigning emperor would retire early to manipulate the nominally ruling emperor from behind the scenes.^[44]

Throughout the Heian period the power of the imperial court declined. The court became so self-absorbed with power struggles in Kyoto and with the artistic pursuits of court nobles that it neglected the administration of government outside the capital. The nationalization of land undertaken as part of the ritsuryō state decayed as various noble families and religious orders succeeded at securing tax-exempt status for their private shōen manors.^[39] By the eleventh century more land in Japan was controlled by shōen owners than by the central government. The imperial court was thus deprived of the tax revenue to pay for its national army. In response, the owners of the shōen set up their own armies of samurai warriors.^[46] Two powerful noble families that had descended from branches of the Japanese imperial family, the Taira and Minamoto clans, acquired large armies and many shōen outside the capital. The central government began to employ these two warrior clans to help suppress rebellions and piracy.^[44]

During the early Heian period, the central government successfully consolidated its control over northern Honshu, where General Sakanoue no Tamuramaro subjugated the Emishi people led by Aterui in 802.^[47] By 1051, however, members of the Abe clan, who occupied key posts in the regional government, were openly defying the central authority. At the request of the imperial court, the Minamoto clan engaged and defeated the Abe clan during the Former Nine Years War.^[48] The authority of the imperial court was thus temporarily reasserted in northern Japan. Following another civil war – the Later Three-Year War – full power was captured by Fujiwara no Kiyohira; his family, the Northern Fujiwara, would control northern Honshu for the next century from their capital Hiraizumi.^[49][50]

In 1156 a dispute over succession to the throne erupted and the two rival claimants hired the Taira and Minamoto clans respectively in the hopes of securing the throne by military force. In this war, the Hōgen Rebellion, the Taira clan led by Taira no Kiyomori defeated the Minamoto clan. Kiyomori used his victory to accumulate power for himself in Kyoto until 1180, when he was challenged by an uprising led by Minamoto no Yoritomo, a member of the Minamoto clan whom Kiyomori had exiled to Kamakura. Though Taira no Kiyomori died in 1181, the bloody Genpei War between the Taira and Minamoto families continued for another four years. The victory of the Minamoto clan was sealed in 1185 when a force commanded by Yoritomo's younger brother, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, scored a decisive victory at the naval battle of Dan-no-ura. Yoritomo and his retainers thus became the de facto rulers of Japan.^[39]

Medieval Japan[edit]

Kamakura period (1185–1333)[edit]

Upon seizing power, Yoritomo chose to rule in consort with the imperial court in Kyoto. Though Yoritomo set up his own government in Kamakura in the Kantō region east of Kyoto, he styled it as a bakufu, which means "tent headquarters", implying that the Kamakura government was merely the army of the central imperial court.^[51] Legitimacy was conferred on the shogunate by the court, but the shogunate were the de facto rulers of the country.^[52] The court maintained bureaucratic and religious functions, however, and the shogunate welcomed participation by members of the aristocratic class.^[52] The older institutions remained intact, in a weakened form, and Kyoto remained the official capital.^[52] This system has been contrasted with the "simple warrior rule" of the later Muromachi period.^[52]

While the Ise branch of the Taira, which had fought against Yoritomo, was extinguished, other branches, as well as the Hōjō, Chiba, Hatakeyama and other families descended from the Taira, continued to thrive in eastern Japan, with some (notably the Hōjō) attaining high positions in the Kamakura shogunate.^{[53][54][better source needed]} Yoritomo also attempted to assassinate Yoshitsune, whom he viewed as a rival to power. Yoshitsune was initially harbored by Fujiwara no Hidehira, the grandson of Kiyohira and the de facto ruler of northern Honshu. In 1189, after Hidehira's death, his successor Yasuhira attempted to curry favor with Yoritomo by attacking Yoshitsune's home. Although Yoshitsune was killed, Yoritomo still invaded and conquered the Northern Fujiwara clan's territories.^[55] In subsequent centuries, Yoshitsune would become a legendary figure, portrayed in countless works of literature as an idealized tragic hero.^[56]

In 1192 the emperor declared Yoritomo shogun, an abbreviation of the title seii tai-shōgun ("barbarian-subduing great general").^[51] Japan remained largely under military rule until 1868. The office of shogun weakened, however, after Yoritomo's death in 1199. Behind the scenes, Yoritomo's wife Hōjō Masako became the true power behind the government. In 1203 her father, Hōjō Tokimasa, was appointed regent to the shogun, Yoritomo's son Minamoto no Sanetomo. Henceforth the Minamoto shoguns became puppets of the Hōjō regents, who were samurai of Taira descent and who wielded actual power.^[55]

The regime which Yoritomo had established and which was kept in place by his successors was decentralized and feudalistic in structure, in contrast with the earlier ritsuryō state.^[51] Yoritomo selected the provincial governors, known under the titles of shugo or jitō, from among his close vassals, the gokenin. The Kamakura shogunate allowed its vassals to maintain their own armies and to administer law and order in their provinces on their own terms.^[57]

In 1221, the retired Emperor Go-Toba instigated what became known as the Jōkyū War, a rebellion against the shogunate, in an attempt to restore political power to the court.^[58] The rebellion was a failure, and led to Go-Toba himself being exiled to Oki Island, along with two other emperors, the retired Emperor Tsuchimikado and Emperor Juntoku, who were exiled to Tosa Province and Sado Island respectively.^[58] The shogunate further consolidated its political power relative to the Kyoto aristocracy.^[51][59]

The samurai armies of the whole nation were mobilized in 1274 and 1281 to confront two full-scale invasions launched by Kublai Khan of the Mongol Empire.^[60] Though outnumbered by an enemy equipped with superior weaponry, the Japanese fought the Mongols to a standstill in Kyushu on both occasions until the Mongol fleet was destroyed by typhoons called kamikaze, meaning "divine wind". In spite of the Kamakura shogunate's victory, the defense so depleted its finances that it was unable to provide compensation to its vassals for their role in the victory. This had permanent negative consequences for the shogunate's relations with the samurai class.^[51]

Japan nevertheless entered a period of prosperity and population growth starting around 1250. In rural areas, the greater use of iron tools and fertilizer, improved irrigation techniques, and double-cropping increased productivity and rural villages grew. There were fewer famines and epidemics that caused cities to grow and commerce to boom.^[61] Buddhism, which had been largely a religion of the elites, was brought to the masses by prominent monks, such as Hōnen (1133–1212), who established Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, and Nichiren (1222–82), who founded Nichiren Buddhism. Zen Buddhism spread widely among the samurai class^[51][62]

Zen monks were also associated with the composition of poetry in Chinese, and at least one Zen monk, Shōtetsu, was notable for his contributions to the waka medium.^[63] The waka had flourished in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, with representative poets of the time including the aristocrat Fujiwara no Shunzei, his son Teika, the itinerant monk Saigyō, and the third shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo. After Shōtetsu, however, waka composition became an oddity until modern times.^[63] In addition, Japan's traditional setsuwa ("storytelling") had evolved into powerful and well-developed war dramas.^[64] The Kamakura period also saw the birth of th "war tale" (gunki monogatari) genre, whose early representative works include the Hōgen Monogatari, Heiji Monogatari and Heike Monogatari.^[65] The latter work, which recounted the rise and fall of the Taira clan, has been described as "the Japanese epic", and the twentieth century novelist and essayist Kafū Nagai called it "a unique and immortal Japanese épopée."^[66]

Discontent among the samurai proved decisive in ending the Kamakura shogunate. In 1333 Emperor Go-Daigo launched a rebellion in the hope of restoring full power to the imperial court. The shogunate sent General Ashikaga Takauji to quell the revolt, but Takauji and his men instead joined forces with Go-Daigo and overthrew the Kamakura shogunate.^[51]

Muromachi period (1333–1568)[edit]

Takauji and many other samurai soon became dissatisfied with Go-Daigo's Kenmu Restoration, an ambitious attempt to monopolize power in the imperial court. Takauji rebelled after Go-Daigo refused to appoint him shogun. In 1338 Takauji captured Kyoto and installed a rival member of the imperial family on the throne, Emperor Kōmyō, who did appoint him shogun. Go-Daigo responded by fleeing to the southern city of Yoshino where he set up a rival government. This ushered in a prolonged period of warfare between the Northern Court and the Southern Court.^[67]

Takauji set up his shogunate in the Muromachi district of Kyoto. However, the shogunate was faced with the twin challenges of both fighting the Southern Court and also of maintaining its authority over its own subordinate governors. Like the Kamakura shogunate, the Muromachi shogunate appointed its allies to rule in the provinces, but increasingly these men styled themselves as the daimyo ("feudal lords") of their domains and they often refused to obey the shogun. The Ashikaga shogun who was most successful at bringing the country together was Takauji's grandson Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who came to power in 1368 and remained influential until his death in 1408. Yoshimitsu expanded the power of the shogunate and in 1392 brokered a deal to bring the Northern and Southern Courts together and end the civil war. Henceforth the shogunate kept the emperor and his court under tight control.^[67][68][69]

In spite of the war, Japan's relative economic prosperity, which had begun in the Kamakura period, continued well into the Muromachi period. By 1450 Japan's population stood at ten million, compared to six million at the end of the thirteenth century. Commerce flourished as never before, including considerable trade with China and Korea.^[61] It was also during the Muromachi period that some of Japan's most representative art forms were developed, including ink wash painting, ikebana flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, Japanese gardening, bonsai, and Noh theater.^[68] Though the eighth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimasa, was an ineffectual political and military leader, he played a critical role in promoting this cultural revolution.^[70]

During the final century of the Ashikaga shogunate the country descended into another, even more violent period of civil war. This started in 1467 when the Ōnin War broke out over who would succeed the ruling shogun. The daimyo each took sides and burned Kyoto to the ground while battling for their preferred candidate. By the time the succession was settled in 1477 the shogun had lost all power over the daimyo, who now ruled hundreds of independent states throughout Japan.^[69] During this Warring States period, daimyo fought among themselves for control of the country.^[68] Some of the most powerful daimyo of the era were Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen and Date Masamune.^[71][72] One enduring symbol of this era was the ninja, skilled spies and assassins hired by daimyo. Few definite historical facts are known about the secretive lifestyles of the ninja, who became the subject of many legends.^[73] In addition to the daimyo, rebellious peasants and "warrior monks" affiliated with Buddhist temples also raised their own armies.^[68]

Amid this on-going anarchy a Chinese ship was blown off course and landed in 1543 on the Japanese island of Tanegashima just south of Kyushu. The three Portuguese traders on board were the first Europeans to set foot in Japan. Over the coming decades European traders introduced many new items to Japan, most importantly the musket.^[67] By 1556 Japan's daimyo were already using about 300,000 muskets in their armies.^[74] The Europeans also brought Christianity, which soon came to have a substantial following in Japan. The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier disembarked in Kyushu in 1549.^[67]

Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600)[edit]

During the second half of the 17th century Japan gradually reunified under two powerful warlords, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The period takes its name from Nobunaga's headquarters, Azuchi Castle, and Hideyoshi's headquarters, Momoyama Castle.^[75]

Nobunaga was the daimyo of the small province of Owari. He burst onto the scene suddenly in 1560 when, during the Battle of Okehazama, his army defeated a force several times its size led by the powerful daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto. Nobunaga was renowned for his strategic leadership and his ruthlessness. He encouraged Christianity to incite hatred toward his Buddhist enemies and to forge strong relationships with European arms merchants. He equipped his armies with muskets and trained them with innovative tactics. He promoted talented men regardless of their social status, including his peasant servant Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became one of his best generals.^[76][77][78]

The Azuchi-Momoyama period is often said to have begun in 1568 when Nobunaga seized Kyoto and thus effectively brought an end to the Ashikaga shogunate. He was close to reuniting all Japan in 1582 when one of his own officers, Akechi Mitsuhide, killed him during an abrupt attack on his encampment. Hideyoshi avenged Nobunaga by crushing Akechi's uprising and emerged as Nobunaga's successor. Hideyoshi completed the reunification of Japan by conquering Shikoku, Kyushu, and the lands of the Hōjō family in eastern Japan. He launched sweeping changes to Japanese society, including the confiscation of swords from the peasantry, new restrictions on daimyo, persecutions of Christians, a thorough population census, and a new law effectively forbidding the peasants and samurai from changing their social class. As Hideyoshi's power expanded he dreamed of conquering China and launched two massive invasions of Korea starting in 1592. Hideyoshi failed to defeat the Chinese and Korean armies on the Korean peninsula and the war ended only with his death in 1598.^[76][77][79]

In the hope of founding a new dynasty, Hideyoshi had asked his most trusted subordinates to pledge loyalty to his infant son Toyotomi Hideyori. Despite this, almost immediately after Hideyoshi's death war broke out between Hideyori's allies and those loyal to Tokugawa Ieyasu, a daimyo and a former ally of Hideyoshi.^[76] Tokugawa Ieyasu won a decisive victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, ushering in 268 uninterrupted years of rule by the Tokugawa clan.^[80]

Modern Japan[edit]

Edo period (1600–1868)[edit]

The Edo period was characterized by relative peace, stability, and prosperity under the tight control of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled from the eastern city of Edo (modern Tokyo).^[81][82] In 1603 Emperor Go-Yōzei declared Tokugawa Ieyasu shogun, and Ieyasu abdicated two years later to groom his son as the second shogun of what became a long dynasty.^[81] Nevertheless, it took time for the Tokugawas to consolidate their rule. In 1609, the shogun gave the daimyo of Satsuma Domain permission to invade the Ryukyu Kingdom for perceived insults towards the shogunate; the Satsuma victory began 266 years of Ryukyu's dual subordination to Satsuma and China.^[83][84] A plan to make Tokugawa's rival Hideyori a daimyo failed and instead Hideyori's castle was stormed and destroyed during the Siege of Osaka in 1615.^[85] Soon after this the shogunate promulgated the Laws for the Military Houses, which imposed tighter controls on the daimyo. This was later coupled with the alternate attendance system, which required each daimyo to spend every other year in Edo under the watchful eye of the shogun.^[81][86] Even so, the daimyo continued to maintain a significant degree of autonomy in their domains within a system that the historian Edwin Reischauer called "centralized feudalism".^[82] The central government of the shogunate in Edo, which quickly became the largest city in the world by population, took counsel from a group of senior advisors known as rōjū and employed samurai as bureaucrats.^[81][87] The Emperor in Kyoto was funded lavishly by the government but was allowed no political power.^[88]

The Tokugawa shogunate went to great lengths to suppress social unrest. Harsh penalties, including crucifixion, beheading, and death by boiling, were decreed for even the most minor offenses, though criminals of high social class were often given the option of seppuku ("self-disembowelment"), an ancient form of suicide that now became ritualized. Christianity, which was seen as a potential threat, was gradually clamped down on until finally, after the Christian-led Shimabara Rebellion of 1638, the religion was completely outlawed. To prevent further foreign ideas from sowing dissent, the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, implemented the sakoku ("closed country") isolationist policy under which Japanese people were not allowed to travel abroad, return from overseas, or build ocean-going vessels. The only Europeans allowed on Japanese soil were the Dutch, who were granted a single trading post on the island of Dejima. China and Korea were the only other countries permitted to trade, and many foreign books were banned from import.^[81][82][89]

One of the most significant social policies of the Tokugawa shogunate was the freezing of Japan's social classes. The Tokugawas had adopted the philosophy of Neo-Confucianism as their state ideology, and were thus inspired to divide society into the Neo-Confucian hierarchy of four occupations, samurai, peasant farmers, artisans, and merchants. By law, no person was permitted to adopt a different occupation from the one he was born into or to marry a person of a different occupation. Outside of these four classes there were also court nobles, clergymen, and the untouchable burakumin class.^[81][90]

During the first century of Tokugawa rule between 1600 and 1700, Japan's population doubled to thirty million people, due in large part to agricultural growth, but after that the population remained stable for the rest of the period. The shogunate's construction of new roads, elimination of road and bridge tolls, and standardization of coinage promoted commercial expansion that also benefited the merchants and artisans of the cities.^[91] There was growth in the size of cities, whose inhabitants were known as chōnin, but almost ninety percent of the population continued to live in rural areas.^[92][93] However, both the inhabitants of cities and of rural communities would benefit from one of the most notable social changes of the Edo period: increased literacy. The number of private schools in Japan, particularly schools attached to temples and shrines, greatly expanded, raising Japan's literacy rate to thirty per cent. This rate, which may have been the world's highest at that time, provided the impetus for a flourishing commercial publishing industry. Commercial publishers, which started in Kyoto before expanding into Osaka and Edo, produced 100 titles per year during the seventeenth century, and up to six times that number in subsequent centuries.^[81][94]

The Edo period was a time of prolific cultural output. During this period haiku emerged as a major form of literature. Matsuo Bashō, generally considered Japan's greatest haiku poet, was active during the first century of Tokugawa rule. Two important new styles of theater, kabuki drama and the puppet theater known as bunraku, were also created and popularized. Bunraku in particular reached the height of its cultural impact through the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon.^[81][95]

Members of the wealthy merchant class, which patronized this poetry and theater, were said to live hedonistic lives in an ukiyo ("floating world"). They often paid for the services of professional entertainers known as geisha. Most geisha served as prostitutes in officially designated red-light districts, such as Yoshiwara in Edo, which were also frequented by the merchant class. This lifestyle inspired both popular novels known as ukiyo-zōshi ("books of the floating world") and art known as ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world"), the latter of which were often woodblock prints. Japan's greatest woodblock artists lived during the Tokugawa period, including Hiroshige.^[81][95]

Amidst this seeming moral decadence within the merchant class, the samurai class developed a stringent moral code of conduct for themselves known as bushido ("the way of the warrior"). According to the bushido ethic, which was exemplified in The Book of Five Rings, Hagakure, and the writings of Confucian scholar Yamaga Sokō, the samurai were to train themselves to become moral exemplars of such virtues as loyalty, self-discipline, and the cultivation of the mind and body. Hundreds of years later, bushido would become an internationally renowned Japanese cultural trait due to the publication of Nitobe Inazō's 1905 book Bushido: The Soul of Japan.^[96]

Decline and fall of the shogunate[edit]

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the shogunate showed signs of weakening. The dramatic growth of agriculture that had characterized the early Edo period had ended and the government handled the devastating Tenmei and Tenpo famines poorly. Peasant unrest grew and government revenues fell.^[97][98] The shogunate cut the pay of the already financially distressed samurai, many of whom worked side jobs to make a living.^[99] Discontented samurai were soon to play a major role in engineering the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate.^[100][101]

At the same time, the people drew inspiration from new ideas and fields of study. Dutch books brought into Japan stimulated interest in Western learning, called rangaku or "Dutch learning".^[98][101] The physician Sugita Genpaku, for instance, used concepts from Western medicine to help spark a revolution in Japanese ideas of human anatomy.^[102] The scholarly field of kokugaku or "National Learning", developed by scholars such as Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane, promoted what it asserted were native Japanese values.^{[clarification needed]} It criticized the Chinese-style Neo-Confucianism advocated by the shogunate and emphasized the emperor's divine authority, which the Shinto faith taught had its roots in Japan's mythic past, which was referred to as the "Age of the Gods".^[103]

The arrival in 1853 of a fleet of American ships commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry threw Japan into turmoil. The US government aimed to end Japan's isolationist policies. The shogunate had no defense against Perry's gunboats and had to agree to his demands that American ships be permitted to acquire provisions and trade at Japanese ports. The US, Great Britain, Russia, and other Western powers imposed what became known as "unequal treaties" on Japan which stipulated that Japan must allow citizens of these countries to visit or reside on Japanese territory and must not levy tariffs on their imports or try them in Japanese courts.^[98][104]

The shogunate's failure to oppose the Western powers angered many Japanese, particularly those of the southern domains of Chōshū and Satsuma. Many samurai there, inspired by the nationalist doctrines of the kokugaku school, adopted the slogan of sonnō jōi ("revere the Emperor, expel the barbarian"). The two domains went on to form an alliance and in 1868 convinced the young Emperor Meiji and his advisors to issue a rescript calling for an end to the Tokugawa shogunate. The armies of Chōshū and Satsuma marched on Edo. The ensuing Boshin War led to the fall of the shogunate.^[98][105]

Meiji period (1868–1912)[edit]

The emperor was restored to nominal supreme power, and in 1869 the imperial family moved to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo ("eastern capital"). However, the most powerful men in the government were former samurai from Chōshū and Satsuma rather than Meiji, who was fifteen in 1868. These men, known as the "Meiji leaders", spearheaded many of the dramatic political, economic, and cultural changes Japan would experience during this period. The Meiji leaders, who are regarded as some of the most successful statesmen in human history, desired Japan to become a modern, unified nation-state that could stand equal to the Western imperialist powers.^{[106][107][108]} Among them were Okubo Toshimichi and Saigo Takamori from Satsuma, as well as Kido Takayoshi, Ito Hirobumi, and Yamagata Aritomo from Chōshū.^[106]

Political and social changes[edit]

The Meiji government abolished feudalism and the Neo-Confucian class structure, and replaced the domains of the daimyo with prefectures. It instituted comprehensive tax reform and lifted the ban on Christianity. Major government priorities included the introduction of railways, telegraph lines, and a universal education system. In 1872 the government began work toward compulsory primary school attendance.^[106][109]

The Meiji government promoted widespread Westernization and hired hundreds of advisers from Western nations with expertise in such fields as education, mining, banking, law, military affairs, and transportation to remodel Japan's institutions. The Japanese adopted the Gregorian calendar, Western clothing, and Western hairstyles. One leading advocate of Westernization was the popular writer Fukuzawa Yukichi.^[106][110] As part of its Westernization drive, the Meiji government enthusiastically sponsored the importation of Western science, above all medical science.^[110] In 1893 Kitasato Shibasaburō established the Institute for Infectious Diseases, which would soon become world famous,^[110] and in 1913 Hideyo Noguchi proved the link between syphilis and paresis.^[111] Furthermore, the introduction of European literary styles to Japan sparked a boom in new works of prose fiction. Characteristic authors of the period included Futabatei Shimei and Mori Ōgai, although the most well-regarded of the Meiji era writers was Natsume Sōseki, who wrote satirical, autobiographical, and psychological novels combining both the older and newer styles.^{[106][112][113]} Ichiyō Higuchi, a leading female author, took inspiration from earlier literary models of the Edo period.^[114]

Government institutions developed rapidly in response to Freedom and People's Rights Movement, a grassroots campaign demanding greater popular participation in politics. The leaders of this movement included Itagaki Taisuke and Ōkuma Shigenobu. Itō Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of Japan, responded by writing the Meiji Constitution, which was promulgated in 1889. The new constitution established an elected lower house, the House of Representatives, but its powers were restricted. Only two percent of the population were eligible to vote, and legislation proposed in the House required the support of the unelected upper house, the House of Peers. Both the cabinet of Japan and the Japanese military were directly responsible not to the elected legislature but to the Emperor.^[106] Concurrently, the Japanese government also developed a form of Japanese nationalism under which Shinto became the state religion and the Emperor was declared a living god. Schools nationwide instilled patriotic values and loyalty to the Emperor.^[106][115]

Rise of imperialism and the military[edit]

In December 1871, a Ryukyuan ship was shiprecked on Taiwan and the crew were massacred. In 1874, using the incident as a pretext, Japan launched a military expedition to Taiwan to assert their claims to the Ryukyu Islands. The expedition featured the first instance of the Japanese military ignoring the orders of the civilian government, as the expedition set sail after being ordered to postpone.^[116]

Yamagata Aritomo, who was born a samurai in the Chōshū domain, masterminded the reform and enlargement of the Imperial Japanese Army, including modernization and the introduction of national conscription.^[117][118] The new army was put to use in 1877 to crush the Satsuma Rebellion of discontented samurai in southern Japan led by former the Meiji leader Saigo Takamori.^[106]

The Japanese military spearheaded Japan's expansion abroad. The government believed that Japan had to acquire its own colonies to compete with the Western colonial powers. After consolidating its control over Hokkaido and annexing the Ryukyu Kingdom, it next turned its attention to China and Korea.^[119] In 1894 Japanese and Chinese troops clashed in Korea, where they were both stationed to suppress the Donghak Rebellion. During the ensuing First Sino-Japanese War, Japan's highly motivated and well-led forces defeated the more numerous and better-equipped military of Qing China. The island of Taiwan was thus ceded to Japan in 1895, and Japan's government gained enough international prestige to allow Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu to renegotiate the "unequal treaties". In 1902 Japan signed an important military alliance with the British.^[120]

Japan next clashed with Russia, which was expanding its power in Asia. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 ended with the dramatic Battle of Tsushima, which was another victory for Japan's military. Japan thus laid claim to Korea as a protectorate in 1905, followed by full annexation in 1910.^[106]

Economic modernization and labor unrest[edit]

During the Meiji period Japan underwent a rapid transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Both the Japanese government and private entrepreneurs imported Western technology and knowledge to create factories capable of producing a wide range of goods. By the end of the period, the majority of Japan's exports were manufactured goods.^[106] The owners of some of Japan's most successful new businesses and industries constituted huge family-owned conglomerates called zaibatsu, such as Mitsubishi and Sumitomo.^[121] The phenomenal industrial growth sparked rapid urbanization. The proportion of the population working in agriculture shrank from 75 percent in 1872 to 50 percent within a decade of the end of the Meiji period.^{[122][clarification needed]}

Japan enjoyed solid economic growth at this time and most people lived longer and healthier lives. The population rose from 34 million in 1872 to 52 million in 1915.^[123] Poor working conditions in factories led to growing labor unrest, and many workers and intellectuals came to embrace socialist ideas. The Meiji government responded with harsh suppression of dissent. Radical socialists plotted to assassinate the Emperor in the High Treason Incident of 1910, after which the Tokkō secret police force was established to root out left-wing agitators.^[124][125] The government also introduced social legislation in 1911 setting maximum work hours and a minimum age for employment.^[125]

Taishō period (1912–1926)[edit]

Emperor Taishō's short reign saw Japan develop stronger democratic institutions and grow in international power. The Taisho Political Crisis opened the period with mass protests and riots organized by Japanese political parties. These succeeded in forcing Katsura Tarō to resign as prime minister. This and the Rice riots of 1918 increased the power of Japan's political parties over the ruling oligarchy.^[124][126] The Seiyūkai and Minseitō parties came to dominate politics by the end of the so-called "Taishō demoracy" era. 1925 brought both universal male suffrage for elections to the House of Representatives and the far-reaching Peace Preservation Law that prescribed harsh penalties for communist and socialist activity.^[127]

Japan's participation in World War I on the side of the Allies sparked unprecedented economic growth and earned Japan new colonies in the South Pacific seized from Germany.^[128] After the war Japan signed the Treaty of Versailles and enjoyed good international relations through its membership in the League of Nations and participation in international disarmament conferences. A powerful earthquake in 1923 decimated Tokyo and left roughly 100,000 dead.^[126]

The growth of popular prose fiction, which began during the Meiji period, continued into the Taishō period as literacy rates rose and book prices dropped. Notable literary figures of the era included the novelist Haruo Satō and short story writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, described as "perhaps the most versatile literary figure of his day" by the historian Conrad Totman, produced many works during the Taishō period influenced by European literature, though his 1929 novel Some Prefer Nettles reflects deep appreciation for the virtues of traditional Japanese culture. At the end of the Taishō period, Tarō Hirai, known by his penname Edogawa Ranpo, began writing popular mystery and crime stories.^[129]

Shōwa period (1926–1989)[edit]

Emperor Hirohito's sixty-three-year reign from 1926 to 1989 is the longest in Japanese history.^[130][131] The first twenty years were characterized by the rise of extreme nationalism and a series of expansionist wars. After suffering defeat in World War II, Japan was occupied by foreign powers for the first time in its history, and then re-emerged as a major world economic power.^[131]

Manchurian Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War[edit]

Left-wing groups had been subject to violent suppression by the end of the Taishō period, and radical right-wing groups, inspired by fascism and Japanese nationalism, rapidly grew in popularity.^[132] The extreme right became influential throughout the Japanese government and society, notably within the Kwantung Army, a Japanese army stationed in China along the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railroad.^[133] During the Manchurian Incident of 1931, radical army officers bombed a small portion of the South Manchuria Railroad and, falsely attributing the attack to the Chinese, invaded Manchuria. The Kwantung Army conquered Manchuria and set up the puppet government of Manchukuo there without permission from the Japanese government. International criticism of Japan following the invasion led to Japan withdrawing from the League of Nations.^[131]

Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai of the Seiyūkai Party attempted to restrain the Kwantung Army and was assassinated in 1932 by right-wing extremists. Because of growing opposition within the Japanese military and the extreme right to party politicians, who they saw as corrupt and self-serving, Inukai was the last party politician to govern Japan in the pre-World War II era.^[134][135] In February 1936 young radical officers of the Japanese Army attempted a coup d'état. They assassinated many moderate politicians before the coup was suppressed.^[131] In its wake the Japanese military consolidated its control over the political system and most political parties were abolished when the Imperial Rule Assistance Association was founded in 1940.^[136]

Japan's expansionist vision grew increasingly bold. Many of Japan's political elite aspired to have Japan acquire new territory for resource extraction and settlement of surplus population. These ambitions led to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. After their victory in the Chinese capital, the Japanese military committed the infamous Nanking Massacre. The Japanese military failed to defeat the Chinese government led by Chiang Kai-shek and the war descended into a bloody stalemate that lasted until 1945.^[131] Japan's stated war aim was to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a vast pan-Asian union under Japanese domination.^[131] Hirohito's role in Japan's foreign wars remains a subject of controversy, with various historians portraying him as either a powerless figurehead or an enabler and supporter of Japanese militarism.^[137]

The United States opposed Japan's invasion of China and responded with increasingly stringent economic sanctions intended to deprive Japan of the resources to continue its war in China. Japan reacted by forging an alliance with Germany and Italy in 1940, known as the Tripartite Pact, which worsened its relations with the US.^[131][138]

World War II[edit]

In late 1941 Japan's government, led by Prime Minister and General Hideki Tojo, decided to break the US-led embargo through force of arms. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. This brought the US into World War II on the side of the Allies. Japan then successfully invaded the Asian colonies of the US, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, and the Dutch East Indies.^[131]

In the early stages of the war, Japan scored victory after victory. The tide began to turn against Japan following the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and the subsequent Battle of Guadalcanal, in which Allied troops wrested the Solomon Islands from Japanese control. During this period the Japanese military was responsible for such war crimes as mistreatment of prisoners of war, massacres of civilians, and the use of chemical and biological weapons.^[131] The Japanese military earned a reputation for fanaticism, often employing suicide charges and fighting almost to the last man against overwhelming odds.^[139] In 1944 the Japanese Navy began deploying squadrons of "kamikaze" pilots who crashed their planes into enemy ships.^[131] In 1945 the Navy's superbattleship Yamato was sent on a mission without enough fuel to return to Japan, though it was sunk by an American aerial attack before reaching its target.^[140]

Life in Japan became increasingly difficult for civilians due to stringent rationing of food, electrical outages, and a brutal crackdown on dissent. In 1944 the US Army captured the island of Saipan, which allowed the United States to begin widespread bombing raids on the Japanese mainland. These destroyed over half of the total area of Japan's major cities.^[141][142] The Battle of Okinawa, fought between April and June 1945, left 77,166 Japanese soldiers and more than 140,000 Okinawans dead and suggested that the coming fight for mainland Japan would be even bloodier.^{[131][143][144]}

However, on August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, killing over 90,000 people. This was the first nuclear attack in history. On August 9 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchukuo, and Nagasaki was struck by a second atomic bomb. Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on August 15. During the war Japan suffered almost three million military and over half a million civilian casualties.^[131]

Occupation of Japan[edit]

Japan experienced dramatic political and social transformation under the Allied occupation in 1945–1952. US General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers, served as Japan's de facto leader and played a central role in implementing reforms, many inspired by the New Deal of the 1930s.^[145][146]

The occupation sought to decentralize power in Japan by breaking up the zaibatsu, promoting labor unionism, and transferring ownership of agricultural land from landlords to tenant farmers. Other major goals were the demilitarization and democratization of Japan's government and society. Japan's military was disarmed, its colonies were granted independence, the Peace Preservation Law and Tokkō were abolished, and the International Military Tribunal of the Far East tried war criminals. The cabinet of Japan became responsible not to the Emperor but to the elected National Diet. The Emperor was permitted to remain on the throne, but was ordered to renounce his claims to divinity, which had been a pillar of the State Shinto system. Japan's new constitution came into effect in 1947 and guaranteed civil liberties, labor rights, and women's suffrage, and through Article 9 Japan renounced its right to go to war with another nation.^[145][147]

The San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 officially normalized relations between Japan and the United States. The occupation ended in most of Japan in the year 1952, though the United States administered a number of islands well afterwards, with Okinawa being the last to be returned in 1972.^{[145][148][149][150]} The United States continues to operate military bases throughout Japanese territory, mostly on Okinawa.^[151][152]

Postwar growth and prosperity[edit]

Shigeru Yoshida served as prime minister in 1946–47 and 1948–54, and played a key role in guiding Japan through the occupation. He argued with the Yoshida Doctrine that Japan should forge a tight relationship with the United States and focus on developing the economy rather than pursuing a proactive foreign policy. Yoshida's Liberal Party merged in 1955 into the new right-wing, pro-business Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which went on to dominate Japanese politics for the remainder of the Shōwa period.^[153][154]

Though the war had devastated the Japanese economy, an austerity program implemented in 1949 called the Dodge Line ended inflation. The Korean War (1950–53) was a major boon to Japanese business.^[145] In 1949 the Yoshida cabinet created the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) with a mission to promote economic growth through close cooperation between the government and big business. MITI sought successfully to promote manufacturing and heavy industry, and encourage exports.^[153][155] The factors behind Japan's postwar economic growth included technology and quality control techniques imported from the West, close economic and defense cooperation with the United States, non-tariff barriers to imports, restrictions on labor unionization, long work hours, and a generally favorable global economic environment.^[153]

According to the historian Conrad Totman, "For the Japanese people as a whole, the three decades after 1960 were arguably the best in their entire history". By 1955 the Japanese economy had grown beyond prewar levels.^[130][156] After that, Japan's GNP expanded at an annual rate of over 10% and real wages more than tripled.^[153] Japan's population increased dramatically to 123 million by 1990, life expectancy rose, and the Japanese became wealthy enough to purchase a wide array of consumer goods.^[130][157] During the Shōwa period Japan became the world's largest manufacturer of automobiles and a leading producer of electronics.^[153][158] By 1968, Japan was the second largest economy in the world.^[159]

Japan became a member of the United Nations in 1956 but, according to the historian Kenneth Henshall, it was the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo that "clinched the real readmittance of Japan to the international community".^[153] Japan was a close ally of the United States during the Cold War, though this alliance did not have unanimous support from the Japanese people. As requested by the United States, Japan reconstituted its army in 1954 under the name Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), though some Japanese insisted that the very existence of the JSDF was a violation of Article 9 of Japan's constitution.^[160] In 1960, hundreds of thousands protested against amendments to the US-Japan Security Treaty.^[130] Japan successfully normalized relations with the Soviet Union in 1956, despite an ongoing dispute over the ownership of the Kuril Islands, and with South Korea in 1965, despite an ongoing dispute over the ownership of the islands of Liancourt Rocks.^[161] In accordance with US policy, Japan recognized the Republic of China on Taiwan as the legitimate government of China after World War II, though Japan switched its recognition to the People's Republic of China in 1972.^[162]

Among cultural developments, the immediate post-occupation period became the golden age of Japanese cinema thanks to the abolition of government censorship, low film production costs, expanded access to new film techniques and technologies, and huge domestic audiences at a time when other forms of recreation were relatively scarce.^[163][164] The most widely celebrated movie directors active at this time were Akira Kurosawa, known for the drama films Seven Samurai and Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi, known for the medieval love story Ugetsu, and Yasujirō Ozu, known for Tokyo Story.^[165] In literature, science fiction emerged as a major genre. Leading authors of this period such as Sakyo Komatsu and Haruki Murakami used science fiction to explore complex ideas such as social alienation, excessive materialism, the dangers of technology, and environmental destruction.^[166]

Heisei period (1989–present)[edit]

Japan's economic miracle came to an end shortly after Emperor Akihito took the throne, beginning the Heisei period. The economic bubble of the 1980s popped in 1989, and stock and land prices plunged as Japan entered a deflationary spiral. Japan's banks found themselves saddled with insurmountable debts that hindered economic recovery. Stagnation worsened as the birthrate declined far below replacement level. The 1990s are often referred to as Japan's Lost Decade, and economic performance has frequently been poor in the following decades as well; the stock market never returned to its pre-1989 highs.^[167][168] Amidst the economic uncertainty, Japan's paternalistic system of lifetime employment, whereby corporate employees were guaranteed a safe job within their companies, largely collapsed, and unemployment rates rose.^[169][170]

The faltering economy and several corruption scandals weakened the LDP's dominant political position. Japan was nevertheless governed by non-LDP prime ministers for only two periods: 1993–96 and 2009–12.^[167][171]

In spite of Japan's economic difficulties, this period also saw Japanese popular culture, including video games, anime, and comic books, become worldwide phenomena, especially among young people.^[172] The Japanese government capitalized on this trend by promoting cultural exports under the moniker of "Cool Japan".^[173]

However, in international affairs Japan found itself continuing to struggle to come to terms with the legacy of World War II in Asia. In 1995, Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi issued a landmark statement, aimed particularly at Japan's Asian neighbors, apologizing for Japanese imperialism and aggressive acts during and prior to World War II.^[174] On the other hand, frequent visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto shrine where soldiers and war criminals are enshrined, upset many other Asian nations. In 2005, protests occurred throughout East Asia over the use in Japan of a public school history textbook that seemed to whitewash Japanese war crimes.^[167]

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan left up to 20,000 people dead and caused US$300 billion in damage. The damage extended to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which experienced a nuclear meltdown and severe radiation leakage.^[167]

See also[edit]

• Historiography of Japan
• History of Asia
• History of East Asia
• History of Tokyo
• List of Emperors of Japan
• List of Prime Ministers of Japan
• List of World Heritage Sites in Japan
• Politics of Japan
• Timeline of Japanese history

Academic journals[edit]

• Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History, in Japanese
• Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
• Journal of Japanese Studies
• Monumenta Nipponica, Japanese studies, in English
• Social Science Japan Journal

References[edit]

Books cited[edit]

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• McCullough, William H. (1999). "The Heian Court, 794-1070," in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Morton, W Scott and Olenike, J Kenneth (2004). Japan: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Perez, Louis G. (1998). The History of Japan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-30296-1. 
• Sansom, George (1958). A History of Japan to 1334. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0523-3. 
• Sanz, Nuria (2014). Human origin sites and the World Heritage Convention in Asia. UNESCO. 
• Schirokauer, Conrad (2013). A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.  CS1 maint: display-authors (link)
• Silberman, Neil Asher (2012). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press. 
• Sims, Richard (2001). Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation, 1868–2000. New York: Palgrave. 
• Takeuchi, Rizo (1999). "The Rise of the Warriors," in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Togo, Kazuhiko (2005). Japan's Foreign Policy 1945–2003: The Quest for a Proactive Policy. Boston: Brill. 
• Totman, Conrad (2005). A History of Japan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-119-02235-0. 
• Walker, Brett (2015). A Concise History of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Weston, Mark (2002). Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan's Greatest Men and Women. New York, NY: Kodansha. ISBN 978-0-9882259-4-7. 

Further reading[edit]

• Akagi, Roy Hidemichi, Japan's Foreign Relations, 1542–1936: A Short History (Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1936)
• Allinson, Gary D., The Columbia Guide to Modern Japanese History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999)
• Allinson, Gary D., Japan's Postwar History (London: UCL Press, 1997)
• Beasley, William G., The Modern History of Japan (New York: Praeger, 1963)
• Beasley, William G, Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)
• Clement, Ernest Wilson, A Short History of Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1915)
• Cullen, Louis, A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Edgerton, Robert B., Warriors of the Rising Sun: A History of the Japanese Military (New York: Norton, 1997)
• Friday, Karl F., ed., Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2012)
• Gordon, Andrew, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
• Hall, John Whitney, Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times (New York: Delacorte Press, 1970)
• Hane, Mikiso, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder : Westview Press, 1986)
• Huffman, James L., ed., Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998)
• Hunter, Janet, Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)
• Reischauer, Edwin O., Japan: The Story of a Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970)
• Stockwin, JAA, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Japan (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003)
• Tipton, Elise, Modern Japan: A Social and Political History (New York: Routledge, 2002)
• Varley, Paul. Japanese Culture. 4th Edition. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 2000)

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