A brief comparative study of the imperial crises of China and Japan from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries

Abstract EN

'Empire' in the traditional sense was present throughout most of human history arguably until the emergence of the nation-state structure in the past century, although imperialism persists even to this day.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were characterized by the breakdown of one kind of imperial authority almost all over the world and the advent of a new kind of one.

Such was the case in the Qing empire (1644-1911 AD) of China and the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868 AD) of Japan, both of which experienced the downfall of the existing power structure.

The imperial crises that these two states went through were similar in some ways and distinctly different in other ways, studying which leads to a better understanding of both powers in a transitional, volatile Far East.