Technology And The Culture Of Progress In Meiji Japan

摘要

Meiji industrialization will not be a new subject of interest to most readers of this review. The speed and success of late-nineteenth-century Japan in utilizing the knowledge and technologies of Europe and the United States in an effort to retain autonomy in a new world of competitive colonial ambitions is well known to anyone concerned with the history of technological change and transfer. After all, in most cases and most places, technology transfer between nations fails, often at great economic and cultural cost. If this was so even in cases of a common linguistic and cultural heritage-consider the difficulties Birmingham manufacturers faced when confronted with the American system of manufactures-historians must consider seriously such an exemplary instance of technology transfer across cultures. So explanations of Japan's overall success abound, ranging from that nation's place in time and space, with its provincial and national elites able to learn something from the disasters befalling China, through notions of surplus labor, export earnings, and government interventions, on to the idea of a unique cultural responsiveness.