A Survey on Research Trend in modern Japanese History

Abstract

The Japanese modern history research trends from 2014 to 2015 could be summarized as follows. This paper, based on the awareness of the issues of Korea specific Japanese modern history, was divided into three subject. A first subject is about “How the Japanese modern had been created”. Researches of this subject show its own interpretation about the Meiji Restoration. Other researches of this subject is looking for the breakpoint or the continuity between the early modern and the modern Japan. The second subject is about the “Imperial Japan and colonies”. These researches focus on not the war itself, but the war system. Also researches about during the interwar period have been activated. And researches for the colonial Korean entities in Japan modern history are the main current of this subject area too. This subject has advanced through various angles. The last subject is about “What the contemporary Japan is to us”. These researches are proceeding through various themes to understand contemporary Japan. However some of these researches have concentrated only on the educations, especially history education. Now for the implementation of the awareness of the issues about Japanese modern history in Korea, it is necessary to promote the network and the forum between researchers.