Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and Tokugawa Supporters in Modern Japan
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Description
This book is about the “losers” of the Meiji Restoration and the supporters who promoted their legacy. Although the violence of the Meiji Restoration is typically downplayed, the trauma was real, and those who felt marginalized from the mainstream throughout modern Japan looked to these losers as models of action.
Using a wide range of sources, from essays by former Tokugawa supporters like Fukuzawa Yukichi to postwar film and “lost decade” manga, Michael Wert traces the shifting portrayals of Restoration losers. By highlighting the overlooked sites of memory such as legends about buried gold, the awarding of posthumous court rank, or fighting over a disembodied head, Wert illustrates how the process of commemoration and rehabilitation allows individuals a voice in the formation of national history. He argues that the commingling of local memory activists with nationally known politicians, academics, writers, and treasure hunters formed interconnecting memory landscapes that promoted local figures as potential heroes in modern Japan.
ISBN
9780674726703
Publication Date
2013
Publisher
Harvard University Press
City
Cambridge, MA
Disciplines
Asian History | History
Comments
Table of Contents
Figures and Maps
Introduction: Remembering Losers
1. The Last Bannerman
2. Creating Tokugawa Heroes in Meiji Japan
3. Redeeming Villains
4. Re-creating Restoration Losers in Postwar Japan
5. Oguri and Japan’s New Heroes during the “Lost Decade”
Conclusion: Meaningful Landscapes
Notes
Bibliography
Index