The First Experience with the West as a corrective agent of the modern Japanese historical fiction

Abstract

The chapter deals with status and development of the Japanese foreign policy at the turn of 18th and 19th century. It focuses on assumptions and motives of measures against foreign countries, and analyzes key terms.

It also shows how the initial foreign policy considerations helped form the modern national identity.

Keywords

• policy of isolation
• Tokugawa period
• Shinron
• late Mito school
• kokutai