The Meiji Restoration
Japan industrialises deliberately in a generation to avoid being colonised.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 44 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Perry's warships force Japan open in 1853; the shogunate falls in 1868 and the new government abolishes the samurai class, imposes universal conscription and education, sends missions abroad to study, and builds railways, factories and a modern navy. Within forty years Japan defeats Russia. It is the clearest case of a state consciously restructuring itself in response to external threat, and it becomes an imperial power in turn.