EAST255/HIST296

1st class: Legacies from the pre-modern era

Relative size of contemporary Japan

Geographic context

Historical overview• Kofun era

– Tumuli– “Horse-rider” theories

• Aristocratic Society 6th c. f.– Yamato state formation--adoption of Chinese

culture– Heijo (Nara), Heian (Kyoto)

• Warrior Society 12th c. f.– Kamakura, Ashikaga, Tokugawa (Edo)

• Modern Society (“emperor system”) mid-19th c. ff– Meiji state formation--adoption of European-

American culture

Pre-Edo fort(16th c. Sengoku period)

Tokugawa era, 1600-1868

"Japan at the End of the Edo Period," Felix Beato (Yokohama Archives of History Collection)

Geographic and Historical context (1808)

Perry-Castaneda map collection, UT Austin

Commodore Matthew Perry and the “Black Ships” 1853, 1854

Trade with the “West”

Samurai and attendant

Japan in 1855

• Perry-Castaneda map collection, UT Austin

Japan in 1911 (plus Korea)

• Perry-Castaneda map collection, UT Austin

Emperor and Empress Meiji