What is your favourite period in Japanese history ?

[blessed]

yeah, and you did it (from what i know) pretty hasle free, unlike hard-headed russians who wiped out a 10th of their population.

[Hiroshi66]

yeah, and you did it (from what i know) pretty hasle free, unlike hard-headed russians who wiped out a 10th of their population.

True.

But the Meiji government certainly was authoritarian. Under a facade of constitutional and political rule - Meiji Japan was one of the most authoritarian nations in the world - similar to the likes of today's Iran. Why? Simple - it was a theocratic regime based on Shintoism, which had been in decline for centuries and which had, since the sixth century, played second fiddle to the more secterian Buddhist religion.

All political parties had to be registered with the government. Radicals and many liberals were persecuted by their right-wing and conservative/royalist counterparts. This is before the political arrests of the 1930s.

Indeed, the period of thirty years between 1868 and 1898 transformed a feudalistic, authoritarian and backward country into a modern, powerful, and yet authoritarian country.

[EscaFlowne]

Kofun & asuka (early kingdoms : 300-710)
Nara & Heian (710-1185)
Kamakura (first, Minamoto-Hojo shogunate : 1185-1333)
Muromachi (Ashikaga shogunate 1333-1568)




Here, have a