Japan

Lore & Background

The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later in Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military aristocrats and feudal lords, enforced by warrior nobility named samurai. After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. The Meiji period saw Japan pursue rapid industrialization, modernization, militarism, and overseas colonization. Declaring itself an imperial power in 1889 with the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, it annexed Taiwan in 1895, followed by Korea in 1910. In 1937, Japan invaded China and attacked the U.S. and European colonial powers in 1941, thus entering World War II as an Axis power. After being defeated in the Pacific War and suffering the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under Allied occupation until 1952. It underwent rapid economic growth in the following decades and became one of the first major non-NATO allies of the U.S. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades.

In Their Own Story

The autumn wind off the Seto Inland Sea carries the smell of wet rice and charcoal smoke. In the war-room above Edo, the shogun's advisor unrolls a map of the archipelago and traces the borders of three daimyo domains that have stopped remitting their tribute. Outside, the samurai wait in the courtyard, their katana sheathed but their hands resting on the scabbards. The advisor looks up. "My lord, the Ming envoy arrives in six weeks. Shall we show them a united front, or let them see the cracks?" The shogun does not answer. He is watching the tide pull back from the sand, exposing the dark, tangled roots of the mangrove—holding the shore together, or slowly tearing it apart.

Reader's Guide

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Did You Know?

• The name 'Japan' is based on Min or Wu Chinese pronunciations and was introduced to European languages through early trade.
• The first version of the name in English appears in a book published in 1577, which spelled the name as Giapan.
• Japan's national anthem lyrics were written during the Heian period.
• A smallpox epidemic in 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of Japan's population.