Final Paper

Meiji Japan: Modernization

and the Ecology

Agenda

• Lecture

• Discussion: Marks, Chapter 4

• HW: Marks, Chapter 5

• HW: reading quiz #9 due next Wednesday at 11:59 pm

• HW: medium writing assignment due next Thursday October 31st

at 11:59 pm

• HW: extra credit due next Friday, Nov 1st at 5 PM

Course Units

Upload

assignment

& extra

credit

MUST BE

PDF or

Word doc

1904-5: Russo-Japanese War

https://mfas3.s3.amazonaws.com/objects/SC131768.jpg

Dangers

• Japan in danger of colonization before 1868 because:

• Few deposits of coal

• dwindling forest

• primarily agrarian society

• de-centralized political authority

Meiji Restoration

• For centuries Japan was isolated

• Aggressive ‘Western’ contact in mid-1800s forcing open trade

• shocked them  sparked desire to reform

• 1868: new emperor on throne

• Invested heavily in new industry, introduced compulsory education, modern army tactics/equipment

Difficulties of Modernization

• mountainous terrain + heavy rainfall = large erosion to valley riverbeds

• 17th C. mining  pollution/byproducts caused farmer protests

• Mining was prioritized under the Meiji:

• Deforestation to clear mines / runoff / washed hazardous products away

• Smelting ores and metals produced noxious gases

• Copper was worst – poisonous runoff – killed off agricultural crops

• Mining coal: under fields – destabilized villages

Difficulties of Modernization

• Forests: increasingly dwindling in 1500s/1600s

• Efforts to ‘preserve’ were somewhat successful

• But POST-1868, modernization required lumber

• Ships, docks, bridges, telegraph poles, railroad ties, mine timbers, buildings

of new factories

• State tried to set down new laws to determine property rights of

trees

Difficulties: Overharvesting

Resources

• Fish used as fertilizer

• Traditional Coastal fishing – captured fish like herring for

markets

• Better nets = more fish caught (depleted fish population)

• Industrialization also polluted water and killed sea life

(shellfish, seaweed, fish)

• Price of fish fertilizer increased

• Agriculture intensified: cleared forests for more cropland

• Farmed more marginal land  used guano

• BUT introduced new crops and innovated others (like rice that

withstands cold better) esp. after

1870

• Planted more mulberry trees to support silk industry

• As public health improved, sewage systems washed away

night soil (no longer used for

agriculture)

• Successfully modernized because:

• State supported heavy industry and private companies

• The state owned lots of mines and harbors

• Military conquest of Manchurian lands provided access to iron ore

• Hierarchical society = easy to impose new industrial ethos on

country

Analysis of Primary Sources

Crown Prince Yoshihito and Princess

Kujō Sadako • When was this taken?

• Purpose?

• How would you describe

it?

• What evidence makes

you draw these

conclusions?

• Does it change anything

to know this was a

wedding?

• Picture taken May 1900

Crown Prince Yoshihito and Princess

Kujō Sadako

• Describe what you see in this

second picture.

• What do you think this second

picture represents?

• What evidence do you have for

these conclusions?

• Why do you think people look this

way?

• How does it change knowing it is a

wedding reception for this couple?

Discussion: Marks Chapter 4

Broader questions • What is the Biological Old Regime?

• What types of constraints limited food production and thus population?

• How and why did the Industrial Revolution occur?

• Why did it happen in England and not in China?

• Discuss in terms of “land-saving” mechanisms (p. 115).

• Science and Technology?

• How does industrialization affect global relations between Europe, India and China?

• What is the Anthropocene? Factors?

homework

• HW: Marks, Chapter 5

• HW: reading quiz #9 due next Wednesday at 11:59 pm

• HW: medium writing assignment due next Thursday October 31st at 11:59 pm

• HW: extra credit due next Friday, Nov 1st at 5 PM