Nissan Seminar: Soeda and the Making of Modern Japan

Convener(s): Roger Goodman and Yosuke Buchmeier

Speaker(s): Ian Neary (Oxford)

Japan was transformed between 1870 and 1940 into a country more likely to invade than be invaded with military power founded on a robust industrial base and a state structure comparable to those in contemporary Europe. But how did these changes impact on local communities and what was their contribution to them? This paper looks at political and economic change from early Meiji to early Showa in the small town of Soeda in northern Kyushu.