The Dreadful and the Trivial
The Dreadful and the Trivial
This book has shown how a culture of insubordination, an ideological pattern of rebellion and resistance, developed as a constant feature of Japanese military life from the Meiji Restoration onward. Tracing its roots in the shishi culture of the late Tokugawa period, military insubordination persisted into the 1870s and reached new heights during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. It broke into two independent components: elite resistance to state policy and the shishi tradition of the mixed gangs. The book concludes with a discussion of three “bugs” that allowed the Imperial Japanese Army's rebellious culture to grow, prosper, and radicalize with the passing years: the first bug was the hazy political legitimacy of the Meiji regime; the second was the one-way nature of territorial expansion; and the third was the endless nature of territorial expansion.
Keywords: rebellion, military resistance, Japanese military life, Meiji Restoration, shishi, military insubordination, Imperial Japanese Army, political legitimacy, Meiji regime, territorial expansion
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