On Aug 26, 2014, at 1:22 PM, Evyn MacDude <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Bruce Johnson
> <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 26, 2014, at 11:36 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Would an urge to expand/conquer (Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Manifest Destiny, etc) be enough to initiate, sustain, & then maintain something like that?
>>
>> There is no such thing as ‘urge to expand/conquer’.
>
> Speak for yourself, I fight that urge everyday... ;-)

Hmm…do you have large fleets and tens of thousands of troops willing to keep following you for the sheer joy of conquest?

I think not!

>
>>
>>
>> No one goes off conquering for the joy of conquering. ALWAYS follow the money!
>
> Well, there is that too....
>
> With those quips, I must point out that India and China were both
> largely fractionated with intrusion of of the European powers into
> their respective regions.

They were quite balkanized *before* the western powers came in, India in particular.

This was one of the things distinguishing Japan from those other two states. The Shogunate had lost much of it’s power militarily and was clearly outclassed by the western powers technologically, but Japan was still quite unified.

Also they produced neither silk or opium nor did they have a lot of gold. Gee, what was that about money? :-)

> As for Japan industrialization speed up as a result of the Meiji
> Restoration, while there was a lot of influence by the western powers
> this was largely a Japanese initiative. Also unlike China and India
> Japan was industrialized to nearly western level prior to 1900. (i.e.
> less that 40 years, though there was a significant movement already
> native to Japan at this time).

Mainly because the folks behind the Meiji restoration had witnessed what happened to China and Japan :-)

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs