Historic Background Of Japan

Japan’s history is a dramatic one, in parts. The tales of samurais (who hasn’t heard of them?), shoguns and honour-or-death are the stuff romances are made of, and Japan has plenty of it in its history.  

The first to take power into their hands were the Yamato, who between 300 and 500 A.D, seized the fertile Kansai plain and set about expanding westward; theirs was a aristocratic martial rule, and this the model continued for centuries altogether. By the 8th century, Buddhism (which had arrived from China) reached its peak, and Japan’s first capital was established at Nara but shifted to Kyoto four centuries later. By the time Kyoto became the centre of Japanese power, the emperor had been reduced to a mere figurehead; power was decentralised, and the samurai (warrior class) gained in stature. By the 1500s, Japanese art had reached great heights; Zen Buddhism was the most widely practised religion, and the first foreigners, the Portuguese- in the guise of traders- appeared on the scene. 

After 1600, the capital shifted again- this time to Tokyo, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, which made it their military capital. Although the period saw great progress in the arts, it also witnessed a xenophobic uprising- one that led Japan to close its doors to foreigners (overseas trade re-started only in 1853, by the efforts of the American Commodore Matthew Perry). This was to herald a new era for the country; 15 years later, the Shoguns were overthrown and the Meiji Restoration- returning the Meiji emperor to the throne- took place.  Under the slowly increasing exposure to the west, modernisation arrived in Japan and simultaneously the country moved towards a more militant mood. The annexation of Manchuria and the bombing of Pearl Harbour brought the country bang into the middle of World War II as one of the Axis powers. By the end of the war, Japan had been utterly devastated, become the first country to have a nuclear bomb dropped upon it (around 50 cities besides Hiroshima & Nagasaki suffered terribly), and generally lost its political, military and financial might. But hard work has helped the country to grow into one of the most economically powerful nations of the world- in a mere half-century.