Splendid monarchy : power and pageantry in modern Japan /

In this excellent study of imperial pageantry in Meiji Japan (1868-1912), Fujitani shows that the leaders of the modern government deliberately constructed both an emperor-centered national past and a set of imperial ceremonies to commemorate present national accomplishments and thus forged an identity between the common people and the state. In the early Meiji years the emperor left his palace for imperial processions that allowed him to see and be seen by his subjects. From the promulgation of the Constitution in 1889, ceremonies such as funerals, accession rites, wartime victory celebrations, weddings, and wedding anniversaries took place in Tokyo, and journeys to the capital and simultaneous local celebrations created a sense of national "communion." The study, which draws on government documents, personal memoirs, and newspaper accounts, is richly illustrated with woodblock prints, maps, and commemorative postcards. Throughout the book Fujitani addresses the existing English and Japanese historiography and invokes a wide range of theorists, including Foucault and Geertz, to illuminate the Japanese experience of modernity. The sophisticated analysis is nevertheless very readable. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and above. S. A. Hastings Purdue University