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Joseph M. Henning - Outposts of Civilization: Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations

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Civilization and progress, Gilded Age Americans believed, were inseparable from Anglo-Saxon heritage and Christianity. In rising to become the first Asian and non-Christian world power, Meiji Japan (1868-1912) challenged this deeply-held conviction, and in so doing threatened racial and cultural hierarchies central to American ideology and foreign policy.
To reconcile Japans stature with American notions of Western supremacy, both nations embarked on an active campaign to construct an identity for the Japanese which would recognize Japans progress and abilities without threatening Americans faith in white, Christian superiority. Japanese efforts included reassurances in diplomatic exchanges and in the American press that their nation adhered to the central tenets of Western civilization, namely constitutional government, freedom of religion, and open commerce. Many anxious Americans eagerly accepted such offerings, and happily re-conceived the Japanese as adoptive Anglo-Saxons.
As with the best new work in diplomatic history, in Outposts of Civilization Henning considers culture to be integral to understanding foreign relations. Thus in addition to official documents and press reports, he examines American missionaries writings on the Japanese, and American and Japanese art and literature produced during the Gilded Age. In exploring the delicate and deliberate process of identity construction, and how these discourses on race and progress resonated throughout the twentieth century, Henning has produced a fascinating and important study of American-Japanese relations.

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About NYU Press
A publisher of original scholarship since its founding in 1916, New York University Press Produces more than 100 new books each year, with a backlist of 3,000 titles in print. Working across the humanities and social sciences, NYU Press has award-winning lists in sociology, law, cultural and American studies, religion, American history, anthropology, politics, criminology, media and communication, literary studies, and psychology.
Outposts of Civilization
OUTPOSTS OF CIVILIZATION
Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations
Joseph M. Henning
New York University Press New York and London 2000 by New York University All - photo 1
New York University Press
New York and London
2000 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henning, Joseph M., 1962
Outposts of civilization: race, religion, and the formative years of
American-Japanese relations / Joseph M. Henning.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8147-3605-X (cloth: alk. paper)
1. United StatesRelationsJapan. 2. JapanRelations
United States. I. Title.
E183.8.J3 H46 2000
303.48'273052dc21 00-008182
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Staci and Jake
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Through a Reversed Opera Glass
Chapter 2
Christian Light and Heathen Darkness
Chapter 3
Wise Men from the West
Chapter 4
Nirvana and Hell
Chapter 5
A Dance of Diplomacy
Chapter 6
The Most Un-Mongolian People in Asia
ILLUSTRATIONS
The illustrations appear as a group following page 120.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Throughout the course of this project, I have been the fortunate recipient of generous support (more than I deserve, I fear) from mentors, colleagues, students, friends, and family.
I owe great debts to American Universitys Bob Beisner, Hyung-Kook Kim, Peter Kuznick, and Anna Nelson, who were always available to answer questions, offer criticism, and calm my nerves. Their guidance greatly improved this study, and I thank them for their good company.
Kurk Dorsey, Amy Kaplan, and Lawrence Kessler read early drafts of chapters and asked provocative questions that helped me to sharpen the projects focus. Naoko Shibusawa and David Strauss generously shared with me their manuscripts and ideas on related topics.
At the Saint Vincent College Library, Margaret Friloux rapidly tracked down even the most obscure of interlibrary loan requests, and Ruth J. Simmons at Rutgers University guided me through the William Elliot Griffis Collection, especially its numerous photographs. I thank also the staffs at the National Archives, the Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia Library, and the United Methodist Church Archives. And I commend the Library of Congress staff for their excellent work in difficult conditions.
The support of Niko Pfund at New York University Press has been invaluable. His first suggestions about the challenge of finding the books audience changed my approach to writing.
American University, Saint Vincent College, and the Association of Asian Studies provided important financial support that made this project possible.
I also offer a special thanks to the Saint Vincent College community for its living model of Benedictine hospitality. And I am grateful to my students for sharing their first impressions of Japan and reminding me of my own.
In Washington, Angie Blake, Debbie Doyle, Ken Durr, Kurt Hanson, Ron Howe, and Chris Welch were always ready when I needed their merciless critiques and subversive humor. Our discussions encouraged me to explore not only what I wanted to say, but also how I wanted to say it.
Most importantly, my wife, Staci, is always beside me at each step, reminding me that there is more to the present than the past. And Jake, thank you for always requesting and singing along to American Beauty.
During the South Africa divestment protest at Columbia University in 1985, a demonstrator spoke to raise the spirits of the four hundred or so students camped on the steps of Hamilton Hall. Look around you, she said. Take a close look at each of your neighbors, and youll see that this is a true coalition: everyone here looks different. Jake, that is the world I wish for you.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Japanese names are rendered surname first, given name second. In the case of Japanese authors writing in English, each authors preference is followed. Familiar Japanese place names (such as Tokyo and Hokkaido) appear without macrons.
Outposts of Civilization
INTRODUCTION
One hundred years ago, Japan offered a challenge to Americans. As the first Asian nation to become a modern power, it undermined beliefs that many Americans held dear. They had assumed that modern civilization and progress were white, Christian birthrights: no Mongolian or heathen people could hope to gain these blessings. Japan, however, now had a constitution and a parliament. It was a nation of railroads and gas lamps. It was Asian, yet modern; heathen, yet civilized. Alice Mabel Bacon, reflecting on one year of teaching in Tokyo, wrote in 1893 that the word civilization is so difficult to define and to understand, that I do not know what it means now as well as I did when I left home. Many of her compatriots shared these new doubts.
Four decades earlier, white Americans had brimmed with confidence. They envisioned themselves atop a hierarchy of races. On the lower rungs, beneath Caucasians, stood the allegedly uncivilized and semicivilized: Mongolians, Native Americans, and Africans. As white Americans reached westward across the continent and the Pacific, they believed themselves ordained to extend the influence of Christian civilization. When the gunboats of the Perry Expedition compelled the shoguns government in 1854 to abandon two hundred years of self-imposed isolation, Americans congratulated themselves on opening a stagnant country to the fresh air of Western influence. The United States and other Western powers soon pressured Japan to sign unequal treaties that enshrined its alleged backwardness. Japan lost indefinitely the sovereign authority to set its own tariffs and to exercise legal jurisdiction over foreigners on Japanese soil. In American eyes, Japans commercial and legal systems were inferior to those of the West.
The first Americans in Tokugawa Japan thought they knew exactly what civilization meant. The United States, which represented its pinnacle, had cultivated a democratic society of Christian principles, commercial wealth, and technological innovation. Diplomats and missionaries expected to find few, if any, of these characteristics in Japan. Settling into the legation or their mission stations, they regarded themselves as sentinels in the outposts of civilization.
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