This clear and authoritative book surveys the history of Japan from the mid 19th century up to the present day. It charts the spectacular rise of Japan, a society which leapt in little more than a generation from the feudal to early industrial forms of organisation - an exceptionally disturbing experience for the Japanese as they left behind the traditional and Asian and moved towards the modern and Western. It examines the turbulent 1930s and an empire won and lost between 1937 and 1945, and investigates the major changes after 1945 including the astonishing economic growth that has been achieved since the 1950s. This revised editon covers the economic recession and the dramatic political upheavals of the 1990s, taking the history of Japan up to the end of the 20th century.