Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration

by Marius B. Jansen

Exploring a tumultuous time in Japanese 19th-century history, when the country began to emerge from self-imposed exile, this study profiles activists such as Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro, who played an important role in the development of a unified nation state.

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Japanese Literature, Politics, Historical

423 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Marius Berthus Jansen was Emeritus Professor of Japanese History at Princeton University. Jansen graduated from Princeton in 1943, having majored in European history of the Renaissance and Reformation. After serving in the United States Army, during which time he studied Japanese and working in the Occupation of Japan, Jansen returned to the United States and completed his PhD in history at Harvard in 1950, studying Japan with Edwin O. Reischauer and China with John K. Fairbank. Jansen began his teaching career at the University of Washington in 1950 and moved to Princeton in 1959 as professor in the departments of history and Oriental studies, where he taught until his retirement in 1992.

Reviews

[Ozymandias · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an effort to tell the story of the opening of Japan and fall of the shogunate. This is a notoriously complicated time, with leaders rising constantly to the surface only to be sidelined or assassinated. Nobody can understand what happened without knowing in reasonable detail about events in five key locations (Edo, Kyoto, Tosa, Satsuma, Choshu) and with many individuals. Jansen gave a pretty good overview of the period in his The Making of Modern Japan, but that was of course only a small piece of a larger whole and it naturally needed to simplify greatly. If you want to truly understand anything about what was going on you need to read more dedicated volumes. Like this one.

Even a book of this length can’t cover everything. The Meiji Restoration was a sprawling thing with dozens of key players. To keep the account manageable, Jansen has chosen to focus it around the life of one of the key individuals: Sakamoto Ryoma of Tosa Domain. A ronin whose outsider status ideally positioned him to serve as a conduit for the efforts to unite the opposition to Tokugawa rule under the ultimately successful banner of imperial restoration. As a ronin, Ryoma could roam between domains and make friends with the leaders of rival factions. As a Tosa ronin in particular he was outside the fierce rivalries between other domains (particularly Satsuma and Choshu) and could thus be their intermediary. Since leaving his domain without permission made him essentially an outlaw there was no need to really hold back with his plans. It was dangerous, but somebody needed to do it if they were to succeed.

While it is billed as one this should not be considered a proper biography. It has biographic elements to be sure, but Ryoma himself doesn’t even make an appearance until page 77 and he doesn’t become a major focus until page 160. The majority of the book is what I described above: an account of the fall of the shogunate with the life of Sakamoto Ryoma merely used to keep the material down to a manageable level. The biographical elements do contain some interesting material, otherwise restricted to a Japanese-speaking audience. Ryoma wrote a series of letters to his sister and others which reveal an attractive devil-may-care attitude and an abundance of enthusiasm and wonder. Also of arrogant self-confidence too, but that’s to be expected. Several of these letters are cited in full, as is Ryoma’s eight-point plan for a new government. Other biographical details are sparse and it lacks much of the character analysis of a traditional biography, so these primary sources reveal much of what we learn of his character.

In many ways Ryoma is an ideal choice for protagonist. As mentioned above, his role as middleman between different factions made him vital for the Sat-Cho alliance that overthrew the shogun. And his political manifestos were profoundly influential for those who survived him. Through a focus on his journey we can also understand the evolution in the thinking of thousands of shishi (revolutionaries). This has always been one of the more perplexing aspects of the period for me: the same radical xenophobes who went around murdering foreigners were ultimately the ones to embrace Western influences and remake Japan into a modern state. It makes more sense when you can follow one individual’s struggle. Like most shishi Ryoma started off radically anti-foreigner, furious at the revealed weakness of the shogunate’s capitulation to Commodore Perry and his demands to open Japan to trade. He started off in the Joi faction, plotting to drive all foreigners out and reseal Japan under the shogun’s continued rule. He even plotted to assassinate one of the pro-opening officials, a man called Katsu Kaishu, only to dramatically change tack and become his most loyal lieutenant.

This turnabout has never made sense to me, but Jansen explains it in terms of the naivete of a class of men unaccustomed to having political opinions yet suddenly thrust into a cutthroat political world. Samurai were trained to face problems head on, and when that failed they found themselves drifting aimlessly until, like Ryoma, they found a more complicated understanding of the world. Ironically for all, this new understanding pushed them away from the traditionalists (who had been their firmest antiforeigner allies but feared their disruption of the social order) towards the proponents of opening the country (the men they’d been assassinating). The problem remained that of protecting Japan from outside invasion; once they realized that the direct approach only made Japan weaker they came around to the idea that had so infuriated them in the first place: open Japan so that it could modernize enough to defend against outside threats. From this view, it was easy to pivot their existing frustrations with the shogunate’s inability to keep foreigners out into anger at their efforts to keep control of foreign trade to themselves. It's still faintly bizarre emotionally, but times of great change are naturally unusual and people adapt constantly to survive. Gross hypocrisy is a necessary accompaniment of flexible attitudes.

The book is not perfect of course. The blend of biography and eventful political narrative does not always mix easily. We often have major events mentioned in passing or even given in significant detail only to repeat the same information later on when the topic returns to Ryoma. The title itself is doubly misleading. Not only is the book not really a biography, the other topic isn’t really the Meiji Restoration. While the establishment of imperial rule is the ultimate goal of the key players in the book, Ryoma himself dies shortly before it happens. It’s close enough that it doesn’t feel out of place when we discuss it anyway, but that discussion is of necessity brief and not as detailed as earlier events. This also means that we get no real discussion of what the Restoration involved or the process of reform that was to dominate the rest of the 19th century. The Restoration is about the building of a centralized imperial state in Japan. I don’t know when a natural point to end that topic would be, but the physical act of restoring the emperor was just the beginning. All framing decisions have consequences, but this is a particularly unfortunate one.

I really liked this book. Someday I’d like to find a book specifically on the Meiji Restoration, but this one is good enough for now. Truthfully, given the complexity arising from a time of rapid change I feel that it would only be possible to get a grounded understanding by looking at books covering four different points of view: Satsuma, Chushu, the imperial court, and the Tokugawa. Each experienced the Restoration differently and their impression of it impacted how they responded. Tokugawa Yoshinobu is a particularly interesting figure who really deserves a biography exploring the reasons for his total failure. Samurai Revolution probably comes closest to giving us a Tokugawa viewpoint, but I feel that it’s not as insightful as the current book overall, being prone to romanticizing what is often an unpleasant topic. Donald Keene’s Emperor of Japan gives us a biography of Emperor Meiji that examines the reforms carried out in his name, although as that one is a full-fledged biography the focus on motivation and character can sometimes impact its description of events. As most scholarship is naturally written in Japanese these books are probably your best bets if you want to know more.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Meiji restoration has always fascinated me since it was such a turning point for modern Japan, so I decided to try and get some more information on this momentous event. I thought a book on Sakamoto Ryoma, one of the most loved figures of the era would be a good place to start, so I started with Marius Jansen's book Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration (1995). I wish more of the book had been written in the style of Jansen's preface to the Morningside Edition, where he discusses how Sakamoto's reputation grew with the postwar democracy movement and was brought into the mainstream by the popularity of Shiba Ryutaro's novel Ryoma ga yuku (1966), which then spread to depictions in a NHK TV series and a host of films, where I got my idea of Sakamoto as an agent of change in films like Masahiro Shinoda's Assassination (1964) and Hideo Gosha's Tenchu! (1969). The tone of the book is very academic and the events that led up to the restoration are confusing since there are so many different alliances and figures that were associated with these epochal changes in Japan at the time. I guess my take away about Sakamoto's contributions that he was able to see past his initial radical viewpoints and make alliances that would be beneficial for the nation. He seemed to be charismatic person and a natural unifier. That being said it was a struggle to get through Jansen's turgid prose, so I will search for a more readable version of the restoration and Sakamoto's role in it.

[長谷川 純一郎 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a great overview of the facts about Sakamoto Ryoma's life, Nakaoka Shintaro's life and the Meiji Restoration. I feel like this would be a great supplement for fact checking for anyone who read Shiba Ryotaro's Ryoma ga yuku, however, those books still have yet to be translated. Either way, many stories about or based off of Sakamoto Ryoma have made their way to English speaking shores, and this book gives a great picture of the important facts. Because of that, it doesn't get all too personal with the exception of recounting his escape from the Teradaya and the story of his wife. Yet compared to other western sources on the Meiji Restoration, it is more personal.

The one issue I found is that, as far as I know, the surnames Yamanouchi and Chosokabe are spelled incorrectly. I found this to be very grating, and I even checked with many history savy people in Japan (I plan to ask is Kochi when I go in two weeks, perhaps I'm wrong). The names are written Yamauchi and Chosogabe, the former makes sense because that kanji can be either Yamauchi or Yamanouchi, and the writer even has both versions of both names written in the index. However, I was unable to find any justification for the pronunciations he chose, and would really like to know which is ultimately correct. I feel there should have been a note about this.

[Nabilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annoying prose and dense but valuable to fans of this chaotic era and Sakamoto Ryoma. I like it but it made me fell asleep a few times. That's why i took about 10 months to finish this.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be a very solid coverage of the life and times of a famous figure in Meiji Era Japan. It is structured well and presents not only the choices Ryoma made but the possible reasons and situations behind them.

[Raymond Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good story showing how Japan was at the end of Tokugawa. However, Sakamoto’s story was very small, and probably inflated after his death. I enjoyed it, but also found it quite dry.

[Dan Cowden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows two major topics: the activities of the Tosa domain (largely the modern Kochi prefecture on Shikoku) as one of the great powers of Japan during the slow decline of the Tokugawa Shogunate and how Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro figured in the turbulent times of the end of Tokugawa Shogunate. The story moves back and forth between the politics of the three great western domains (Choshu, Satsuma, and Tosa) and the politics and activities of Sakamoto and Nakaoka, and how they impacted events in the three great domains.

The prose can be troublesome at time, because Professor Jansen wrote this in the early 1960s (published 1961) for the academic circuit, not the modern taste for semi-academic easily-accessible writings. Frankly, I stopped reading the book for about a year because it was putting me to sleep, but shortly after I picked it up again I blew through the second half in a couple weeks. So don't think you're getting a book as readable as Malcolm Gladwell or Bill Bryson. It's an old academic text.

Though the book is predominantly about the Tosa domain and the impact it had during the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate as well as how two of its wayward sons played key roles in the Satsuma-Choshu alliance which ultimately defeated the Tokugawa, a fair amount of general history of Japan from 1853 to 1868 is included so that the events have their proper context. As such, for the student of the Bakumatsu era and Meiji Restoration it's useful to pair this with Albert Craig's "Choshu in the Meiji Restoration" for another in-depth look at how one of the three most important domains in Japan went through a range of reactions to the influence of Western imperialism.

[Gerald Kinro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book gives a good account of the people, events and the forces that led to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and ushered Japan into the modern era. One of the major players was Sakamoto Ryoma, born a low-ranking samurai. When seeing the “black ships” of the west, he favored the expulsion of foreigners from Japan. However, he eventualy realized that Japan was in no position to challenge the military might of the west. He took the position of strengthening the country through trade and the adoption of some of the Western ways. To do this, he shogun had to be overthrown. He was instrumental in uniting the Satsuma and Choshu groups into a strong military unit capable of defeating the existing Tokugawa regime. He was also instrumental in getting these anti-shogunate forces armed with Western weapons. He was assassinated during his efforts.

As mentioned earlier, this work gives a good summary of Japan’s history of the times. It was, however, written by an academic for academics. The scholarship is very good, but it reads like a textbook. I read this work, desiring to learn more about Sakamoto—not just his accomplishments, but the individual challenges he faced during his rise and his work in uniting factions hostile to each other. What did he do and how did he do it? Hence, while one reading this work for a grasp of history may find it rewarding, I found it lacking.

I did a second read after reading other works of the Meiji Restoration and watching television shows on it. The names of the major players were more familiar with this effort and thus my understanding and enjoyment.