Reseña del editor:
The object of this book is to give a bird's-eye view of the history of Japan (up to the end of the Meiji Era), and to indicate in outline how both Old Japan and New Japan were constructed and evolved. It is believed that many persons who would not care to go into the details of Japanese history would like to get an epitome, a general idea, of what has happened during the long course of the history of Japan, Old and New. This book may, therefore, be sufficient for the purposes of the average reader. And, as frequent references are made to fuller accounts, it may also be an introduction to Japanese history for those who desire to pursue the study farther. It should, perhaps, be added that the history of Japan is both interesting and instructive: it is full of the most romantic and exciting incidents and episodes, and it is a study in the evolution of a wonderful people who have astonished the world. There are six great divisions of Japanese history: first, the patriarchal age, when the sovereign was only the head of a group of tribal chiefs, each possessing a hereditary share of the governing power; secondly, a brief period, from the middle of the seventh to the early part of the eighth century, when the tribal chiefs had disappeared and the Throne was approximately autocratic; thirdly, an interval of some eighty years, called the Nara Epoch, during which the propagandism of Buddhism and the development of the material and artistic civilization that came in that religious train engrossed the attention of the nation; fourthly, the Heian Epoch, a period of three centuries, when the Court in Kyoto ruled vicariously through the Fujiwara family; fifthly, the age of military feudalism, from the beginning of the twelfth to the middle of the nineteenth century, when the administrative power was grasped by soldier nobles; and sixthly, the Meiji Epoch of constitutional monarchy.
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