Group items tagged

the Japanese puppet play is serious drama combining words, music, and dancing.

Early Japanese novels consisted of series of incidents, each incident built around a poem.

Therefore, the warriors (samurai) were educating themselves not only in the martial arts but also in literature, philosophy and the arts, e.g. the tea ceremony.

During the Edo period and especially during the Genroku era (1688 - 1703), popular culture flourished. New art forms like kabuki and ukiyo-e became very popular especially among the townspeople.

The most important philosophy of Tokugawa Japan was Neo-Confucianism, stressing the importance of morals, education and hierarchical order in the government and society:

The social hierarchy began to break down as the merchant class grew increasingly powerful while some samurai became financially dependent of them.

n the end of the 18th century, external pressure started to be an increasingly important issue, when the Russians first tried to establish trade contacts with Japan without success

All factors combined, the anti-government feelings were growing and caused other movements such as the demand for the restoration of imperial power and anti western feelings, especially among ultra-conservative samurai in increasingly independently acting domains such as Choshu and Satsuma.

Starting in the 12th century, military administrations called shogunates became the usual form of government.

It took until the end of the 1500s for order to be restored under the Momoyama shogunate, but the government's three famous warriors eventually battled among themselves, breaking up their alliance in 1600.

His rule was marked by the near-elimination of Christianity from Japan in an effort to prevent the conquest of the country by Spain, the expulsion of all Spaniards in 1624, and the deportation of the Portuguese in 1639. All contact with foreigners was then outlawed.

Japan enjoyed a period of blossoming culture, and art, literature, and theater thrived despite the Tokugawa shogunate's strict, repressive control.

After this point, known historically as the Meiji Restoration, true authority rested with a small group of veteran politicians.

Such improvements led to the creation of a considerable export trade as Japan's leaders decided to work with the foreigners, since their efforts to expel them had not succeeded

Continued incursions into China in 1931–1932 secured a Japanese puppet monarchy in China's Manchurian region under Emperor P'u-i, China's last emperor.

plunged into World War II with its attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6

Japan signed the United States-Japan Security Treaty (1951) in San Francisco

Japanese politics after World War II has been dominated by the powerful Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

become a major global financial power and ranked as the world's largest aid donor and overseas investor.

His bold move paid off when the LDP gained a two-thirds majority in the Diet's lower house, thereby gaining for Koiziumi a wide popular mandate for his reforms. Koizumi left office in September 2006, having completed two full terms—a rarity in modern Japan.