How Japan rebuilt itself in a single generation — and what it cost.

Because the questions Japan faced in 1868 — how to borrow from abroad without losing yourself, how to retire an old elite without a war, how to make a nation out of provinces — are being asked again everywhere today.

By the end

You will be able to explain how a closed feudal country became a modern industrial power in under forty years, and what that transformation meant for the people who lived through it.

Who this is for

Anyone curious about how societies change fast, whether you have never read a word of Japanese or you are planning a trip to the Meiji-era sites next month.