He served during the formation of French control over North Africa and during the dissolution of Japan's Tokugawa (1603-1868)
shogunate.
For over two centuries Japan was ruled by the
Shogunate under a law of isolationism, but in the mid-1800s this policy was to change with the arrival of Matthew Perry and his armed warships from the U.
Perry forced the feudal Tokugawa
shogunate to end more than 200 years of national isolation.
Indeed, after the death of Yoritomo in 1199 and the creation of the Hojo Regency, the greatest threat to the Kamakura
Shogunate was the Miura clan.
In the 1850s the UK dominated the world in commerce and trade, consequently the foundation of Anglo-Japanese cultural bridges was considered an immediate priority by the ruling
Shogunate.
After turning 50, however, he went to study under the Tokugawa
shogunate astronomer Takahashi Yoshitoki in Edo, modern-day Tokyo.
The Tokugawa
Shogunate ruled in peace for 250 years, albeit under many restrictions.
During the mid-1600s, Japan's Tokugawa
shogunate took the fateful step of expelling almost all Westerners from the nation and confining the rest to a small artificial island in Nagasaki harbor.
In this book, it is several months later and Sano has had little to do until a mysterious killer starts beheading prominent citizens and taking their heads as a ``bundori'' (war trophy) - crimes that may be tied to an act of betrayal in the civil war that established the Tokugawa
shogunate several decades before.
The author indicates that by the time the Institute for the Study of Barbarian Documents (Bansho Shirabesho) was established by the Tokugawa
Shogunate in 1855, "circumstances had been profoundly altered by the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry" (p.
Under him, the
shogunate came to an end and the modernization of Japan was accelerated.
Following unification under the Tokugawa
shogunate in 1600, hundreds of urban nuclei--ports, temple towns, post stations, and castle towns--were established or expanded, attracting warriors, merchants, artisans, and rural migrants by the thousands.
shogunate - a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)