The Meiji Restoration

Date

1868 (proclamation 3 January 1868)

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Japan

Era

Modern

Significance

On 3 January 1868 a coalition of reformist samurai from the Satsuma and Chōshū domains, together with court nobles, proclaimed the restoration of direct rule by the young Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito), ending more than two and a half centuries of Tokugawa shogunate government.

The resulting Boshin War (1868–1869) crushed forces loyal to the shogun, and the new leadership relocated the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo. Confronting the threat of Western domination so vividly demonstrated in China, the Meiji oligarchs launched one of history's most rapid and far-reaching modernisation programmes. They abolished the feudal domains and the samurai status order, introduced universal conscription, compulsory education, a centralised bureaucracy and tax system, and aggressively imported Western industry, railways, banking, science and legal and military models under the slogan 'rich country, strong army' (fukoku kyōhei). Within a generation Japan transformed itself from a secluded feudal society into an industrialising nation-state and the first non-Western great power, capable of revising the unequal treaties and ultimately of imperial expansion. The Restoration stands as a pivotal turning point in modern Asian and world history.

Empires active in 1868 (proclamation 3 January 1868)

• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Promulgation of the Meiji Constitution
  11 February 1889
• Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and the Kingdom of Italy
  May–September 1860; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861
• Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj
  1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
• Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan
  1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
• Berlin Conference and the partition of Africa
  15 November 1884 – 26 February 1885
• The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)
  1848–1849

Further reading

Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912

If you read one book

Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912

Donald Keene

Definitive, readable life of the Meiji emperor.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun's Last Samurai — Romulus HillsboroughAmazon →

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