Abstract

In the 1860s, Japan was pulled out of its centuries-long isolation and forced to rapidly adapt to the industrialized world. The state quickly made friends with the more established Western powers and was able to impress them with its surprising miliary victories over China in 1895, Russia in 1905, and Germany in 1919. However, the goodwill that Japan had garnered with the West evaporated after the First World War. How could a nation so adept at modern militarism and economics alienate every friend it had in the span of 25 years? The answer stems from Japan's long feudal age; in the twentieth century, Japan was unable to reconcile feudal concepts of Bushidō and Shinto with emerging Wilsonian idealism, leading to a fundamental disconnect that drove the Japanese down the path to confrontation with the nations that had ushered it into the modern era.

Highlights

  • If the world had been a family in the twentieth century, Japan would have been the little brother, unsure of how to behave, but heavily in9luenced by how its older siblings acted

  • Japan’s involvement in the war quickly and decisively. This easy victory instilled in the Japanese a sense of con9idence; after 45 years as a minor power, watching the rest of the world operate, Japan considered itself among the major players on the world stage

  • In the span of 25 years, Japan would systemically alienate each of its newfound friends

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Summary

Introduction

If the world had been a family in the twentieth century, Japan would have been the little brother, unsure of how to behave, but heavily in9luenced by how its older siblings acted. Many chose to defend their honour, knowing full well that the punishment for doing so could be death.18 This example is a good metaphor for the way Japan handled itself in the twentieth century; like the samurai of old, Japan, cognizant of the rules set out by the League of Nations and understanding their import, continually ignored them in favour of what it deemed morally and economically right.

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