The course provides a general introduction to Japanese history from 1890 to the present, with emphasis on Japan’s rise as the modern world’s first non-Western power, imperialism, industrialization, social change, gender relations, democracy, World War II, the U. S. Occupation, state management of society, the postwar “economic miracle,” and the preoccupation with national identity in a Western-dominated world. In the final weeks, we will think about post-1945 developments in terms of continuities with (and divergences from) the prewar and wartime history of Japan.

Associated course analyses

HIS322