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podcasts. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 269.

The Revolution will not be live.

Very often when we talk about the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent project of westernization in Japan,

we treat the outcome as a given.

Japan's new government decided to westernize, and so it westernized. The impression thus given is a given. Japan's new government decided to westernize, and so it westernized.

The impression thus given is of, if not a painless process, then at least a smooth one where the methods and goals were clear, and all that remained was figuring out how to implement them.

I, myself, am guilty of this simplification, and to defend myself against my own accusations,

there is a good reason to do it.

After all, if you are planning to dwell on the later successes of the Westernization project,

...