From Isolation to Transformation: How Internal Discontent and Foreign Pressure Led to the Fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration
Students will complete a 10 page final paper as culmination of critical skills and knowledge gained through the quarter. Due May 9. Students will conduct research about a targeted topic associated with this courses topics. To do so, they will consult primary sources and scholarly works monographs and/or scholarly journal article and write a coherent, argument-driven paper. Students will be encouraged to submit an outline along with the sources to be used before writing the paper and can consult me at any time about your paper, topic, sources etc.
How to write a history research paper?
Picking a topic
First you have to determine a general area in which you have an interest (if you arent interested, your readers wont be either). You do not write a paper about Republican era China however, for that is such a large and vague concept that the paper will be too shallow or you will be swamped with information. The next step is to narrow your topic. Are you interested in comparison? battles? social change? politics? causes? biography? Once you reach this stage try to formulate your research topic as a question. For example, suppose that you decide to write a paper on the use of Liang Qichaos texts. You might turn that into the following question: what kind of modern China did Liang envision? What kind of new Chinese people did he imagine as the central pillar of modern China? Or you might ask a quite different question, How did Liang Qichao embark on the journey of modernizing both the nation and its populace? By asking yourself a question as a means of starting research on a topic you will help yourself find the answers. You also open the door to loading the evidence one way or another. It will help you decide what kinds of evidence might be pertinent to your question.
Finding materials
No one should pick a topic without trying to figure out how one could discover pertinent information. The trick of good research is detective work and imaginative thinking on how one can find information. First try to figure out what kinds of things you should know about a topic to answer your research question. Are there statistics? Do you need personal letters? What background information should be included? Then if you do not know how to find that particular kind of information, ASK. A reference librarian or professor is much more likely to be able to steer you to the right sources if you can ask a specific question such as Where do I find CCP document about its policy on rural China in the early 1930s??, rather than asking where do I find materials for the communist revolution?
Use the footnotes and bibliographies of general background books as well as reference aids to lead you to special studies. If the LMU library does not have the books or sources you need, try accessing through on-line database such as Project MUSE and JSTOR. Reference Librarians would love to help you learn to use these research tools. It pays to browse in the reference room at the library and poke into the guides which are on the shelves. It also pays to browse the Internet. However, for a course paper, Id encourage you simply make good use of the book Sources of Chinese Tradition, a full pdf version of which is on Bruinlearn.
How to put the relevant materials together?
Sample solution
Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell.
In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.
God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.
Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.
To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.
References
Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.
Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.
The prompt asks for guidance on how to synthesize research materials for a history paper, using the provided example topic: “From Isolation to Transformation: How Internal Discontent and Foreign Pressure Led to the Fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.” Here’s a breakdown of how to approach putting relevant materials together for such a paper:
1. Understanding Your Research Question(s):
The example topic itself implicitly contains several research questions:
What were the key aspects of Japan’s isolationist policy under the Tokugawa Shogunate?
What forms of internal discontent existed during the late Tokugawa period? What were their causes and manifestations?
What were the significant instances and nature of foreign pressure on Japan leading up to the Meiji Restoration?
How did internal discontent and foreign pressure interact and contribute to the weakening and eventual fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate?
In what ways did the Meiji Restoration represent a transformation from the Tokugawa period? What were the immediate goals and actions of the Meiji reformers?
As you conduct your research, keep these overarching questions in mind. They will help you filter relevant information and focus your analysis.
2. Identifying Relevant Material Types:
To answer these questions comprehensively, you’ll need to look for various types of materials:
Primary Sources: These are firsthand accounts from the period. For the Tokugawa and Meiji Restoration, this could include:
Treaties and diplomatic correspondence: Records of interactions with foreign powers (e.g., Perry’s letters, treaties signed).
Official documents of the Shogunate and early Meiji government: Laws, edicts, policy statements.
Writings of key figures: Diaries, letters, essays by samurai, intellectuals, reformers, and Shogunate officials (if translated and available).
Visual materials: Woodblock prints depicting foreign encounters, social unrest, or early Meiji reforms.
The prompt asks for guidance on how to synthesize research materials for a history paper, using the provided example topic: “From Isolation to Transformation: How Internal Discontent and Foreign Pressure Led to the Fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.” Here’s a breakdown of how to approach putting relevant materials together for such a paper:
1. Understanding Your Research Question(s):
The example topic itself implicitly contains several research questions:
What were the key aspects of Japan’s isolationist policy under the Tokugawa Shogunate?
What forms of internal discontent existed during the late Tokugawa period? What were their causes and manifestations?
What were the significant instances and nature of foreign pressure on Japan leading up to the Meiji Restoration?
How did internal discontent and foreign pressure interact and contribute to the weakening and eventual fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate?
In what ways did the Meiji Restoration represent a transformation from the Tokugawa period? What were the immediate goals and actions of the Meiji reformers?
As you conduct your research, keep these overarching questions in mind. They will help you filter relevant information and focus your analysis.
2. Identifying Relevant Material Types:
To answer these questions comprehensively, you’ll need to look for various types of materials:
Primary Sources: These are firsthand accounts from the period. For the Tokugawa and Meiji Restoration, this could include:
Treaties and diplomatic correspondence: Records of interactions with foreign powers (e.g., Perry’s letters, treaties signed).
Official documents of the Shogunate and early Meiji government: Laws, edicts, policy statements.
Writings of key figures: Diaries, letters, essays by samurai, intellectuals, reformers, and Shogunate officials (if translated and available).
Visual materials: Woodblock prints depicting foreign encounters, social unrest, or early Meiji reforms.
Accounts by foreign visitors: Diaries and narratives of Westerners who visited Japan during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods.
Scholarly Works (Monographs and Journal Articles): These are secondary sources that analyze the period based on primary sources and previous scholarship. Look for works that specifically address:
The Tokugawa political and social system.
Economic conditions and social unrest in the late Tokugawa period.
The history of foreign relations with Japan.
The Meiji Restoration and its causes.
The early Meiji reforms in various spheres (political, economic, social, military).
The intellectual and ideological currents of the time.
3. Strategies for Connecting Materials and Building Your Argument:
Once you have gathered relevant materials, the next step is to analyze them and connect them to build your argument. Here’s a process you can follow:
Note-Taking and Summarization: As you read, take detailed notes. Summarize key arguments, identify important facts and figures, and record direct quotes that are particularly insightful or illustrative. Be sure to note the source of each piece of information.
Identifying Themes and Patterns: Look for recurring themes and patterns across your sources. For example, you might notice multiple accounts of peasant uprisings, increasing dissatisfaction among lower-ranking samurai, or consistent pressure from Western powers for trade and diplomatic relations.
Cross-Referencing Information: Compare information from different sources. Do they agree or disagree? If they disagree, try to understand why (e.g., different perspectives, biases, or access to information). This critical comparison will strengthen your analysis.
Connecting Evidence to Your Implicit Questions: Actively think about how the information you are gathering helps answer the research questions embedded in your topic. For instance, when you find a treaty signed under duress, note how this exemplifies foreign pressure and potentially fueled internal discontent about the Shogunate’s weakness.
Developing Your Thesis Statement: Based on your initial research and identified themes, formulate a clear and concise thesis statement. This is your main argument about how internal discontent and foreign pressure led to the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. Your thesis will guide the rest of your paper. For example: “The confluence of mounting internal socio-economic grievances, particularly among the peasantry and lower samurai, and increasingly forceful foreign demands for open trade and diplomatic ties exposed the inherent weaknesses of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s isolationist policies, ultimately leading to its collapse and the radical transformation of Japan under the Meiji Restoration.”
Structuring Your Paper: Organize your paper logically to support your thesis. A possible structure could be:
Introduction: Briefly introduce the Tokugawa Shogunate’s isolationist policy, the internal and external pressures, and state your thesis.
Background on Tokugawa Isolation and Society: Describe the key features of the Tokugawa system and the social hierarchy, highlighting any inherent tensions.
Internal Discontent: Detail the various forms of internal discontent (peasant uprisings, samurai dissatisfaction, economic problems, intellectual critiques) and analyze their causes and impact on the Shogunate’s authority. Use primary and secondary sources to illustrate these points.
Foreign Pressure: Describe the arrival of foreign powers (e.g., Perry), the demands they made, the Shogunate’s responses, and the consequences of these interactions. Use treaties and accounts of these encounters as evidence.
The Interplay of Internal and External Factors: Analyze how internal weaknesses made Japan vulnerable to foreign pressure and how foreign pressure exacerbated internal discontent, ultimately leading to the anti-Shogunate movement.
The Fall of the Tokugawa and the Meiji Restoration: Describe the key events leading to the overthrow of the Shogunate and the establishment of the Meiji government.
The Initial Transformation under Meiji: Discuss the early goals and actions of the Meiji reformers, highlighting the shift away from isolation and the adoption of Western models.
Conclusion: Restate your thesis in light of the evidence presented and offer a final reflection on the significance of this period in Japanese history.
Using Evidence Effectively: Support your claims with specific evidence from your sources. Don’t just present information; analyze it and explain how it supports your argument. Use direct quotes sparingly and strategically to highlight key points or perspectives.
Citing Your Sources: Follow a consistent citation style (e.g., Chicago, MLA) and meticulously cite all your sources, both primary and secondary, in footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography. This is crucial for academic integrity and allows your reader to follow your research.
