Definition
Japan is an island nation off the eastern coast of mainland Asia whose history is shaped by its geography: close enough to absorb Chinese and Korean influence, separated enough to develop a distinctive culture and to control the terms of outside contact.
Its history runs through several broad phases: an early classical court society, centuries of warrior rule under shoguns, a long period of restricted foreign contact, and a dramatic modernization beginning in the late nineteenth century that turned it into an industrial and imperial power.
Why it matters
How it works
Across its history Japan repeatedly imported elements of other societies — Chinese writing, Buddhism, Confucian statecraft, later Western technology and institutions — and adapted them to local conditions rather than copying them wholesale. Periods of openness alternated with periods of restricted contact, giving Japanese elites unusual control over the pace of outside influence. This pattern reached its sharpest expression after the mid-nineteenth century, when Japan moved within a few decades from a closed feudal order to an industrialized state capable of competing with the great powers.