History and the State in Nineteenth-Century Japan

The nineteenth century saw the emergence both of history as an independent scientific discipline and of national history as a means to legitimize the nation state. In History and the State in Nineteenth-Century Japan Margaret Mehl examines how the new imperial government, which replaced the rule of the shoguns in 1868, made the compilation of an official national history part of its nation-building project. An imperial rescript decreed that a government office of historiography be established in