The transformation of Japan between 1868 and 1912 from a feudal society closed to the outside world into an industrialized nation-state with a constitution, a modern military, and imperial ambitions — the most rapid and comprehensive modernization in history, achieved on Japan's own terms.
In 1853 American warships forced Japan open at gunpoint. Within fifty years Japan had built a navy that destroyed Russia's Pacific fleet. The Meiji Restoration is the story of how a country responded to the threat of colonization by colonizing others — and what that transformation cost.