Japan and the World Since 1868 (International Relations and the Great Powers)

By the mid-nineteenth century Japan had given up the technology of firearms and not a single steam engine existed in the country. By 1906 it had taken on and defeated Russia in war; by 1942 its empire spanned almost a fifth of the globe. Only three years later the empire had gone and Japan, devastated by bombing (conventional and atomic), was under American occupation. From that nadir in its fortunes, Japan has risen to become the second greatest economy in the world, with a level of prosperity to match. In no small part the economic 'miracle' was aided by Japan's foreign policy choices since 1945, just as those choices before that year led to security, aggrandizement, and eventually disaster. How to account for this progress from prudence, through folly, to present success is the enquiry at the core of Michael Barnhart's new study. He provides a masterly account of the domestic pressures that often helped shape foreign policy, as well as an evaluation of the changing world order itself. One of the book's central themes is the absence of a sustained national consensus in Japan's foreign-policy making, particularly before - but also after - 1945. The international environment for Japan from 1960 to the early 1990s was a tranquil one, in stark contrast to every prior period, but the end of the Cold War order has renewed divisions and acrimony in the debate over the country's proper role in the world. It may be that the history of Japan's foreign relations before those halcyon decades will have more contemporary usefulness than is commonly supposed or, perhaps, may be desired.

Japan and the World since 1868 (International Relations and the Great Powers)

Arts & Photography

Barnhart, Michael A.

History & Criticism

Hodder Education Publishers

Japan's position as a major power in international affairs is recent, but the changes it has gone through during even so short a time have been immense. How to account for its progress from prudence, through folly, to present success is the enquiry at the core of Michael Barnhart's study. He provides a masterly account of the domestic pressures that often helped shape foreign policy, as well as an evaluation of the changing world order itself.

Children's Books

Can You Beat Churchill?: Teaching History through Simulations

How do you get students to engage in a historical episode or era? How do you bring the immediacy and contingency of history to life? Michael A. Barnhart shares the secret to his award-winning success in the classroom with Can You Beat Churchill?, which encourages role-playing for immersive teaching and learning. Combating the declining enrollment in humanities classes, this innovative approach reminds us how critical learning skills are transmitted to students: by reactivating their curiosity and problem-solving abilities. Barnhart provides advice and procedures, both for the use of off-the-shelf commercial simulations and for the instructor who wishes to custom design a simulation from scratch. These reenactments allow students to step into the past, requiring them to think and act in ways historical figures might have. Students must make crucial or dramatic decisions, though these decisions need not align with the historical record. In doing so, they learn, through action and strategic consideration, the impact of real individuals and groups of people on the course of history. There is a quiet revolution underway in how history is taught to undergraduates. Can You Beat Churchill? hopes to make it a noisy one.

History

Military

Cornell University Press

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Books by Barnhart, Michael A.