The title seems carefully chosen: His time frame extends from the beginning of the 17th century to the 21st. A distinguished professor of history at Princeton, Jansen has previously written books, such as Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration and The Japanese and Sun Yatsen, that concentrated on specific topics. Now in a magisterial book that's also highly readable, Marius Jansen has told the story of Meiji and with it the creation of modern Japan. Except for the works of Asianist scholars, it has received almost none of the attention given its three counterparts. It turned Japan from a cloistered island society into a modern, soon-to-be imperialist nation-state in the space of a quarter-century and in so doing exerted a powerful effect on Asian and world history. For more than a century, it has been a model for modernizing nation-states and societies throughout the world. Yet the Meiji Revolution, generally known as the Meiji Restoration among students of Asian history, stands along with the American, French and Russian revolutions as one of the defining political and cultural transformations of modern times. "Something about Japan" or "Was he a Chinese emperor?" is about par for the course in my experience. Ask the average intelligent American reader about the Meiji revolution and you will learn very little.
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