Episode 86 - Dr. Mark Ravina (Emory)

In this episode, Dr. Ravina reconsiders received narratives of the Meiji Restoration, challenging ideas of the Restoration as a sharp break and reviving the importance of antiquity to early Meiji leaders.  We compare the Meiji Restoration to earlier examples of foreign threat and domestic reform in premodern Japan, question concepts of "modernization" and "Westernization" commonly applied to the Meiji Period, and place the Restoration among the global revolutions of the 19th century. (Transcript here).