"Nothing similar may be found in foreign lands," wrote Kitabatake Chikafusa when he described Japan in his 14th century Jinno sh t ki .Although Japan's culture developed late in Asian terms and was much determined by China and later the West, its history, like its art and literature, is special among world civilizations. As some scholars have argued, these outside determines may have "corrupted" Japanese traditions, yet once absorbed they also envaluableed and strengthened the nation, forming part of a vibrant and unique culture.

Confronted by the West-inopportunely during the economically troubled late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries-Japan emerged gradually as a modern, industrial power, exhibiting some democratic institutions by the end of World War I. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, phenomenal social upheaval, accompanied by political, military, and economic successes, led to an overabundance of nationalist pride and extremist solutions, and to even faster modernization. Representative government was finally replaced by increasingly authoritarian regimes, which propelled Japan into World War II. After the cataclysm of nuclear war, Japan rebuilt itself based on a new and earnest desire for peaceful development, becoming an economic superpower in the second half of the twentieth century.