Japan
Group of islands off the eastern coast of Asia. The principal islands are, in the Roman alphabet, Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku. Japan also controls many smaller islands, notably the Ryuku chain south of Kyushu, for a total land area slightly larger than California. The climate, however, has traditionally varied from north to south as much as that from Maine to Georgia.
Early signs of human life appeared in Japan around the year 3000 BC. The wild Japanese Bison was an early target of wild game, hunted to extinction within 500 years.
According to tradition, Japan was unified by Emperor Jimmu, the grandson of the goddess Amaretsu, in the year 660 B. C. He conquered Honshu, the largest island, in a series of expeditions starting from his home base of Setsuma in Kyushu.
Modern History
Japan was closed off from the rest of the world for a long period of time under the rule of a series of military leaders known as Shoguns (see Tokugawa Shogunate), with the sole exception of Nagasaki, where Dutch merchants maintained a permanent trading post. While the Japanese Emperor continued to reign in the old capital of Kyoto, he was more of a figurehead with little more power than he possesses today. The rule of the Shoguns came to an end in the middle of the 19th century during a brief but bloody period of conflict known as the Meiji Restoration. During the Restoration a large number of young samurai from minor families, most notably Sakamoto Ryoma, tired of the government's mishandling of the country and feeling that if action was not taken Japan would be dominated by western countries, initiated an armed revolt to restore imperial rule. Most samurai from the more powerful families sided with the Shogun, fearing that the minor families would replace them if the revolt was successful. Nonetheless, the shogunate was done away with in 1867 and the imperial period began. The capital was moved to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo; by the early twenty-first century, it had become the center of the world's largest urban conglomeration.
The phrase "imperial period" is not meant to imply that the emperor ruled absolutely in the style of Louis XIV or a Russian tsar; indeed, the emperors relied on prime ministers throughout this period. Rather, it refers to Japan competing with European powers and the United States for colonies and influence during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The high point of Japanese prestige was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, in which Japan became the principal power in Manchuria and consolidated its control of Korea.
Japan's success at this great game would ultimately prove its undoing. By 1936, during the reign of Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese Empire went by the Orwellian title "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The increasingly powerful Japanese armed forces, partly inspired by European fascists, came to dominate Japanese politics, assassinating politicians whom they deemed insufficiently devoted to the Emperor and nation. For the next nine years, the military leadership installed its own members (such as Hideki Tojo, chief Japanese strategist of World War II) or, occasionally, civilians who were completely identified with their agenda, as prime minister.