| Acknowledgments | p. xi |
| Note on Japanese Names | p. xii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| When Does Modern Japan Begin? | p. 5 |
| The problem: When Did Modern Japanese History Begin? | p. 9 |
| Meiji 1-10: Takeoff Time for Modern Japan | p. 18 |
| Agrarian Japan and Modernization | p. 26 |
| Japan's Modern Economic Growth: Capitalist Development Under Absolutism | p. 34 |
| Have ""Modern"" and ""Modernization"" Been Overworked? | p. 43 |
| Beyond Modernization: Society, Culture, and the Underside of Japanese History | p. 45 |
| Beyond Modern | p. 48 |
| The Meiji Restoration: product of Gradual Decay, Abrupt Crisis, or Creative Will? | p. 55 |
| The Meiji Restoration | p. 59 |
| The Ch&obar;sh&ubar; Activists and 1868 | p. 66 |
| The Meiji Restoration: From Obsolete Order to Effective Regime | p. 72 |
| The Meiji Government and Its Critics: What is Best for the Nation? | p. 79 |
| The Meirokusha and the Building of a Strong and prosperous Nation | p. 83 |
| The Movement for Liberty and popular Rights | p. 90 |
| The popular Rights Debate: political or Ideological? | p. 98 |
| The Meiji Leadership: Matsukata Masayoshi | p. 104 |
| Tanaka Sh&obar;z&obar;: Champion of Local Autonomy | p. 112 |
| Meiji Imperialism: planned or Unplanned? | p. 121 |
| Meiji Imperialism: ""phenomenally Rapid"" | p. 125 |
| Meiji Imperialism: ""Not Based on preordained Design"" | p. 131 |
| Meiji Imperialism: ""Mostly Ad Hoc"" | p. 136 |
| Meiji Imperialism: pacific Emigration or Continental Expansionism? | p. 141 |
| The Russo-Japanese War: Turning point in Japanese History? | p. 149 |
| The Takeoff point of Japanese Imperialism | p. 153 |
| The Late Meiji Debate Over Social policy | p. 158 |
| External and Internal problems After the War | p. 163 |
| How Democratic was Taish&obar; Democracy? | p. 171 |
| The patterns of Taish&obar; Democracy | p. 175 |
| political parties and Nonissues in Taish&obar; Democracy | p. 181 |
| The Nonliberal Roots of Taish&obar; Democracy | p. 191 |
| Japanese Colonialism: Enlightened or Barbaric? | p. 199 |
| Japanese Colonialism: An Overview | p. 201 |
| Japanese Colonialism: Discarding the Stereotypes | p. 208 |
| Colonizer and Colonized in Taiwan | p. 214 |
| Japanese Colonialism in Korea | p. 222 |
| pan-Asianism in Action and Reaction | p. 229 |
| The 1930s: Aberration or Logical Outcome? | p. 237 |
| The 1930s: A Logical Outcome of Meiji policy | p. 241 |
| Detour Through a Dark Valley | p. 252 |
| Japan's political parties in Democracy, Fascism, and War | p. 258 |
| A Social Origin of the Second World War | p. 269 |
| The Lesson of the Textbooks | p. 282 |
| Japan's Foreign policy in the 1930s: Search for Autonomy or Naked Aggression? | p. 291 |
| Japan's Drive to Autarky | p. 293 |
| The Great Divorce: Japan and Universalism Between the World Wars | p. 301 |
| From Mukden to pearl Harbor | p. 308 |
| Fogbound in Tokyo: Domestic politics in Japan's Foreign policymaking | p. 316 |
| Japan and ""Asia for Asians"" | p. 323 |
| The Allied Occupation: How Significant Was It? | p. 331 |
| The Allied Occupation: Catalyst Not Creator | p. 335 |
| Reform and Reconsolidation | p. 343 |
| A Question of paternity | p. 352 |
| Some Questions and Answers | p. 357 |
| Japan: East or West? | p. 365 |
| Not Westernization but Modernization | p. 369 |
| A Combination of East and West | p. 376 |
| Neither East nor West but All Alone | p. 384 |
| Suggested Readings | p. 391 |
| The Contributors | p. 401 |
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