Meiji 1868

Among the revolutionary movements which shook the nineteenth-century world, the change of government in Japan in 1868 occupies a special place. A new, dynamic ruling class provoked the overthrow of the old rule of the shogun and in a few years the visible structure of feudal society disappeared. The founders of the new Meiji rule had themselves been warriors and thought they were able to resist foreign pressure, but very quickly they adopted western dress gave their country a modern army, built