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Wrapping up. Course is open for evaluations. All lectures available online for review Review session, pre exam: May 12, 6:00 pm, Maxwell Dworkin, G125 Final exam: May 15 (Sat), 2pm A-14: Emerson 104. E1851 area students: Emerson 305. Final Exam. 1. Structure
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Wrapping up • Course is open for evaluations. • All lectures available online for review • Review session, pre exam: May 12, 6:00 pm, Maxwell Dworkin, G125 • Final exam: May 15 (Sat), 2pm • A-14: Emerson 104. • E1851 area students: Emerson 305
Final Exam • 1. Structure • I. Identification or matching of terms, events, people • II. Identify and contextualize excerpts from source readings: • Who produced it? Why? • For what audience? What do we learn of producer, of audience? • What are the limits to what it tells us? • III. Combination of medium and long answers (essays) • 2. Coverage primarily modern, but about 1/4-1/3 premodern • Studying as a way to put together your understanding - more important than exam itself?!
Economy: Japan’s “Lost Decade” and lessons for America The bubble bursts: 1991-->
Economy, 2003-2008 • Relatively strong GDP growth: • 2003-2007 annual growth • averages over 2% • Unemployment falls under 4% • Exports rise • Especially • to China
Explaining Japan’s “Lost Decade” (ver. 1) 1. Systemic crisis: the bankrupt transwar system • A system that once worked, • -developmental state • -interfirm networks as dynamic • -long-term labor commitments • Stopped working • -rigid state role • -ineffective finance system • -inflexible corporate organization • Until systemic reform took place and took root
Explaining Japan’s “Lost Decade” (ver. 2) 2. Policy failures drag down a gradually changing but still-viable system • Slow response to financial crisis • Tax increase choked off recovery in ‘98 • Eventually, through trial and error, got it right, (aided by “divine wind” of Chinese economy surge)
Lost decade lessonsfor America? Robert Feldman, Morgan Stanley Research report, 11/27/2008
Relation of recent past to longer modern history • Political • From ideological politics of transwar era (ca. 1930s-1980s) • “Back” to two parties, slightly different, working to stabilize capitalist system (rather than remake it) • Social • From postwar era of “attainable dream” of middle class life (always with some anxiety) • “Back” to era of widened, sharper social divisions of winners, losers, new poor, new rich
Relation of recent past to longer modern history • Economic • From transwar era of high growth (1930s, 1950s-80s), “world model” • To an “ordinary” advanced economy • Geopolitical • Long “postwar” (to the present) as subordinate ally under American hegemony (and tensions around this • Long “modern” dilemma, find place between Asia and the West
Japan in Asian and global contexts • In context of Asia: • Early migration from and contacts with continent • Borrowing from China • Importance of trade during medieval age • In context of world: • Arms length, but not “closed,” Tokugawa era • Japan as participant in a global modernity • Political ideas and practices: democracy, empire • “modern life”: good wives, wise mothers; salarymen; modern girls and boys
Connecting past to present • History as evolution forward • Buddhist institutions and world views • Tokugawa economic development as base of Meiji capitalism • Understandings of constitutional government: Chiba to Yoshino to Kita • Prewar and wartime industrial policy as platform for postwar • History as “storehouse” (inventing tradition) • Tokugawa Ieyasu as a “sage” king • The 20th c. creation of warrior ideal (bushidō) • Justifying Western dress with Nara era practice • A hybrid monarchy: Heian, Prussian, Victorian, and even Hollywood elements