Civilization and enlightenment

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"Albert Craig's engaging history offers an illuminating look at a key figure and the world of ideas in nineteenth-century Japan. Fukuzawa Yukichi introduced the schema of the stages of civilization into Japan during the 1860s and 1870s. He replaced the traditional view of Japan as Confucian and civilized with a new view in which it was backward and only half-civilized, which produced calls for change and inspired the "civilization and enlightenment movement" of the 1870s. Moreover, even while acknowledging the "civilization" of the West, Fukuzawa was keenly aware that the West was imperialistic and a dire threat to less developed nations. Because of this danger, he felt that Japan's future could not be left to incremental changes; only a great exertion of national will would suffice to preserve the nation. Government action was necessary to promote reforms in every area of life. The people, too, had to promote learning and attain a personal independence that would undergird Japan's national independence." "Moving back and forth between the ideas of Western thinkers and Fukuzawa's reinterpretations in terms of Japan's needs and cultural assumptions, Albert Craig provides a new analysis of the founding of modern Japan."--BOOK JACKET.