French and Japanese modernization

These new thoughts and anxieties about identity, history, culture, destiny and unity began to develop in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The period was characterized by civil wars, overthrowing of century-old regimes, and new ideas were born based on nationalism of the people rather than a royal dynasty. For example the various revolts during the Napoleonic period in Spain and Italy. Additionally, there were new social tensions that fostered both economic and social change (Schellinger, 1082) the aim of this text is to look at the French revolution in the Napoleonic period and the Japanese revolution in the Meiji period and to determine which was the more successful of the two. The outburst of the French revolution brought qualitative and immediate change in the Italian way of life.

They believed that the only way to get France to adopt modernization was to eliminate old regime and this included the foreigners primarily Austria. This is because the Habsburg directly owned part of Italy in the North and had power in Tuscany. The Habsburgs were especially unpopular as they differed politically, ideologically, and strategically. By the late 1700s, in the wake of Napoleon's progress the political system in the country had changed (Otto, and Dinwiddy, 204) Napoleon in his project to create a more modern France had offended the Old Italian classes. This is because he had taken from them the territorial system based on regions. Most parts of the country had however come to be centralized under a central governing system.

(Otto, and Dinwiddy, 211) Conversely, the restoration of Meiji in 1868 marked one of the most significant events in the history of modern Japanese. It manifested the end of Tokugawa shogunate and restored the traditional rule of the emperor. Moreover, this period endorsed the social, political and economic changes that had begun in the late Tokugawa era. In the Japanese Meiji period between 1868- 1912 westernization had superseded traditional Japanese systems. (Grey, Huault, Perret, and Taskin, 127) After the First World War, by the mid-1920s “modanizumu” became a common word cropped up in local newspapers. Additionally, by this time the Japanese had become less state-led and the focus had shifted from national, political goals. While modernization founded on the western models can still be imitated people are no longer attracted to it as a symbol of up datedness.