Writing an Essay on the Meiji Restoration, help?

Question

Here are my main ideas:

How Japan was like before the Meiji Restoration

What rebellions/conflicts took place during the Meiji Restoration

How Japan Modernized/westernized

+ The after effects of the Meiji Restoration (How Japan is today).

It's supposed to be 5 pages!
Please give me any information you can about this topic. The one I'm really concerned about is 'How Japan was before the Meiji Restoration' because I don't really have that much info.

Please don't give me a copy and paste of Wikipedia. I've already read the article for all it's worth. Thanks.

Answer 1

Hello.
Before Meiji Restoration, Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa bakufu(shogunate).
If you have already researched about the very cause of Restoration, then I assume you know what reformers wanted to change in Japanese government system.
I wish I could translate the following link, but it displays important key figures (i.e. Ryoma Sakamoto, Meiji Emperor, Katsu Kaishu, Hirofumi Ito, etc.) during the Restoration.

http://www.asyura2.com/0406/idletalk10/msg/503.html

Before the Restoration,
-Bakufu was at the top of government
-Feudal system
-Social hierarchy system (classes of samurai, farmers, artisans and tradesmen)
-Mixture of Buddhism with Shintoism

Hope it helps.

Answer 2

Wow, only 5 pages. That is going to very challenging considering the amount of information out there. You could write 5 pages on only your first main point.

I live down in Kagoshima. The home of two of the most prolific supporters of the MR. Toshimichi Okubo and Takamori Saigo. If you do a search on these two names, you will get a lot of info.

If you want to know more about Japan before the MR. You would look under words like Shogunate, and the Feudal System, in Japan. I guess you could sort of paralell the way life was in Japan before the MR to the movie Star Wars episode 4. In SW4, the emporer desolved the senate and handed power over to the local govoners. Those govoners would be equal to the Samurai Lords. Their word was law in their areas. The movie the Last Samurai, although not historical, is relatively acurate as far as life in those times.

Good luck with your report.

Answer 3

Basic difference is, O.K....welcome, in Japan, where it aided the merchant class to overturn the existing social order with the noble samurai on top in the pecking order and by "restoring" the Emperor, take control. In China: Stay out! We're the central kingdom. and then a gradual encroachment leading to "zones of interest" by the colonial (European) powers. Since you're writing this, more would be insultingly intrusive on my part.

Answer 4

Good luck to you, I am going to do my own essays sooner.. I wish I could help but the library has many books regarding the Meiji Restoration or if you find any Japanese that could help you on your essays.