Tuesday 26 February 2019

Revolutions are for China. The Chinese have dynasties. Japan has one royal family, going back the beginning

Japan had a revolution in 1867-68. The Shogunate was overthrown - really it collapsed - and control of the state returned to the emperor in Kyoto. So ended a quarter millennium of Tokugawa rule. But the Japanese do not call this overturn a revolution; a restoration rather, because they prefer to see it as a return to normalcy. Also revolutions are for China. The Chinese have dynasties. Japan has one royal family, going back the beginning.

D. Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations (1998), 371

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