Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 42.

Awakening Asia.

In what seems to be becoming something of a theme for this show,

I'd like to take this week to discuss a topic that,

while it is indisputably a part of Japanese history,

is also very much a part of world history.

It's a great example of how a seemingly local event can reverberate across the entire world and become a rallying cry for a huge number of causes.

This week we're going to go over the story of the Russo-Japanese War,

but we're going to be looking at it from a very different angle.

We're going to talk about the effect Japan's greatest victory in the 20th century

had on the rest of the non-Western world.

But first we have to set the stage.

In the 1800s, the world saw what can easily be described

as the most massive shift in the global balance of power ever to occur.

In the year 1800, Europe, under the influence of the reforms and reorganization of the

Enlightenment, was growing steadily more powerful, but it was not yet unchallengeable.

In Asia, the Ottoman Empire, while not the unstoppable titan it had once been,

still had a powerful hold over the Middle East and North Africa.

China, meanwhile, was coming down from the peaceful golden ages of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong

emperors, under whom China attained its largest territorial scope ever, and whose reign saw a level of prosperity

that was arguably not equaled until the very recent past.

...