Reopening the 'Opening of Japan': A Russian-Japanese Revolutionary Encounter and the Vision of Anarchist Progress
| Autor: | Sho Konishi |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2007 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The American Historical Review. 112:101-130 |
| ISSN: | 1937-5239 0002-8762 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/ahr.112.1.101 |
| Popis: | paring the Ishin to revolutionary movements in Europe, Mechnikov called it "a complete and radical revolution, the kind we know only from history."2 Seeking to right a common misunderstanding among many in the West about the causes of the Ishin, he described it as being of native origin. He argued that the Ishin was not simply a political reaction to external pressure on Japan to adopt Western civilization and become involved in capitalist development. Rather, it was a complex revolution from within, based on centuries of social, cultural, and intellectual developments, that had merely been given further impetus by disturbances from abroad. Mechnikov would eventually accord the Ishin global significance for human progress in a different direction altogether from Western modernity. Historians have rarely questioned one aspect of the birth of modern Japan: the "Opening of the Nation" to the West, or kaikoku, and the resulting initiation of civilization and progress. As a result, the meaning of kaikoku has been closed, and alternative narratives of modern Japanese history have essentially been precluded from the historiography on Japan. By exploring Mechnikov's private encounter with Ishin Japan on the non-state level beyond the imagined East-West divide, it may be possible to reopen the meaning of kaikoku and introduce the larger associated vision of cooperatist anarchist civilization and progress.3 At the very moment that Japan's |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|