Splendid isolation

HistoryIn accounts of the making of modern Japan, two key questions loom large: how did the country manage to avoid the humiliation suffered by its Asian neighbours at the hands of western imperialism; and from where did it conjure up the enormously powerful economic and military machine that allowed this relatively small island nation to become a regional superpower as early as 1905?

Irish historian Prof Louis Cullen of Trinity College sets out to explore these questions by delving heavily into the period known as sakoku, or national exclusion, from the 1630s to the 1850s, when Japan effectively sealed itself off from steady foreign encroachment by the missionaries of European colonialism.

Standard western accounts suggest this attempt by the Japanese military government to hold the rest of the world at bay was driven by irrational and obstructionist motives and that it stunted the growth of commerce and trade.

Cullen, however, begs to differ, arguing that this is a caricatured version of history aimed at painting the benefits of western expansion in a rosy hue:

Japanese policy-makers were rational and for its time sakoku policy was equally rational; the economy was highly developed; and the obsession by western writers for explaining why and how Japan could rival the west is not only patronising but . . . directed to a non-problem created by reluctance to accept that an eastern country, or at least one eastern country . . . could apparently effortlessly equal the west.

Far from leaving the country in a state of underdevelopment and social decay, Japan in isolation, despite a weak taxation system, boasted two centuries of peace and an already thriving economy and society by the time US gunboats under Commodore Matthew Perry came calling in the 1850s.

Cullen says that the Japanese side showed great skill and realism in negotiating with the western traders, building a firewall against the sort of colonial carve-up that had befallen China, behind which it rapidly built up military power.

His account is a welcome reminder that Japan's early attempts to imitate the colonial ambitions of the great powers in Korea were initially welcomed by the west, before the ambitious military mandarins in Tokyo began to tread on the toes of their counterparts in Washington and London. Already by the 1920s, knowledgeable commentators were predicting that the resulting clash of imperialisms in Asia meant war between Japan and the US was inevitable.

Cullen's account, then, is broadly revisionist, determined to see the turbulent history of Japan's emergence into the club of rich nations and its nemesis in China in the second World War from the perspective of the Japanese side. This has entailed delving into Japanese primary sources and he shows great skill in synthesizing this material with better known accounts.

The book's sub-theme, the great flaw of the Japanese political system - its weak centre and multiple competing groups all vying for legitimacy around the talismanic power of the emperor, combined with the failure of the 1890 constitution to rein in the armed forces - is also convincingly argued, although reminiscent of earlier accounts, particularly Karel Van Wolferen's seminal The Enigma of Japanese Power. The book reads like a piece of scholarly work from an earlier and more careful time, when historiography was the result of careful research and distilled knowledge by an author dedicated to the craft. Apart from its wonderfully fluid telling of a key historical era, it will be of interest to readers here for the evocative references to Ireland that dot the text.

When Cullen calls the ruthless Japanese political leader, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who invaded the Korean peninsula in the 1590s, "Japan's Cromwell for Korea", Irish readers will understand better than most what he means.

The fascinating last chapter in which Cullen brings readers up to date and suggests that the problems that dogged Japan in the past - aggressive foreign powers outside and a weak domestic political system, apparently incapable of change - are still very much with us, is worth the price of the book alone.

David McNeill is a Tokyo-based journalist and academic who teaches at Sophia University

A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds By Louis M. Cullen Cambridge University Press, 376pp, £47.50 hbk/£17.95 pbk