hi, i'm john green. this is crash course worldhistory, and today we're going to talk about nationalism, the most important global phenomenonof the nineteenth century and also the phenomenon responsible for one of the most commented-uponaspects of crash course, my globes being out of date. uss "r" not a country! [explosion noise.]rhodesia? [explosion noise.] south vietnam? [explosion noise.]sudan with no south sudan? [explosion noise.]
crash diet korea, yugoslavia? [explosion noise.] okay, no more inaccuracies with the globes.ahhh, the little globes! this one doesn't know about slovakia [explosionnoise], this one has east-frackin' pakistan [explosionnoise]
and this one identifies lithuania as partof asia [explosion noise]. okay, no more globe inaccuracies. actually,bring back my globes. i feel naked without them. [theme music] so if you're into european history, you'reprobably somewhat familiar with nationalism and the names and countries associated withit. bismarck in germany, mazzini and garibaldi in italy and mustafa kemal, a.k.a. ataturk,in turkey. but nationalism was a global phenomenon, andit included a lot of people you may not associate with it, like muhammad ali in egypt and alsothis guy [lincoln]. nationalism was seen in the british dominionsas canada, australia and new zealand became
federated states between 1860 and 1901. iwould say "independent states" instead of federated states, but you guys still havea queen! it was also seen in the balkans, where greecegained its independence in 1832 and christian principalities fought a war against the ottomansin 1878. in india, where a political party, the indian national congress, was foundedin 1885, and even in china, where nationalism ran up against the dynastic system that hadlasted more than two thousand years. and then, of course, there are these guys[hitler, mussolini, hirohito], who in many ways, represent the worst of nationalism,the nationalism that tries to deny or eliminate difference in the efforts to create a homogeneous,mythologized unitary polity. we'll get to
them later, but it's helpful to bring them up nowjust so we don't get too excited about nationalism. okay, so before we launch into the history,let's define the modern nation-state. definitions are slippery, but for our purposes, a nation-stateinvolves a centralized government that can claim and exercise authority over a distinctiveterritory. that's the state part. it also involves a certain degree of linguistic andcultural homogeneity - that's the nation part. mr. green, mr. green! by that definition, china wasa nation-state by, like, probably the han dynasty. dude, me from the past, you'regetting smart! yeah, it could be, and some historians argue that it was. nationhood isreally hard to define. like in james joyce's ulysses, the character bloom famously saysthat a nation is "the same people living in
the same place," but then he remembers theirish and jewish diasporas and adds, "or also living in different places." but let's ignorediasporas for the moment and focus on territorially-bounded groups with a common heritage. same people,same place. so how do you become a nation? well, someargue it's an organic process involving culturally-similar people wanting to formalize their connections; othersargue that nationalism is constructed by governments, building a sense of patriotism through compulsorymilitary service and statues of national heroes. public education is often seen as part ofthis nationalizing project. schools and textbooks allow countries to share their nationalizingnarratives, which is why the once and possibly-future independent nation of texas issues textbooksliterally whitewashing early american history.
still, other historians argue that nationalismwas an outgrowth of urbanization and industrialization, since new urbanites were the most likely peopleto want to see themselves as part of a nation. for instance, prague's population rose from157,000 to 514,000 between 1850 and 1900, at the same time that the czechs were beginningto see themselves as separate from the austro-hungarian empire. which is a cool idea, but it doesn't explainwhy other less-industrialized places like india also saw a lot of nationalism. the actual business of nationalization involvescreating bureaucracies, new systems of education, building a large military, and often usingthat military to fight off other nation-states, since nations often construct themselves inopposition to an idea of otherness. a big
part of being irish, for instance, is notbeing english. so emerging nations had a lot of conflicts,including the napoleonic wars, which helped the french become the french, the indian rebellionof 1857, which helped indians to identify themselves as a homogeneous people, the americancivil war - i mean, before the civil war, many americans thought of themselves not asamericans, but as virginians or new yorkers or pennsylvanians. i mean, our antebellumnation was usually called "these united states." after, it became the united states. so in the u.s, nationalism pulled a nationtogether, but often, nationalism was a destabilizing force for multiethnic land-based empires.this was especially the case in the ottoman
empire, which started falling apart in thenineteenth century as first the greeks, then the serbs, romanians, and bulgarians, allpredominantly christian people, began clamoring for and, in some cases winning, independence. egypt is another good example of nationalismserving both to create a new state and to weaken an empire. muhammad ali, who was actuallyalbanian and spoke turkish, not egyptian arabic, and his ruling family encouraged the egyptianpeople to imagine themselves as a separate nationality. but okay, so nationalism was a global phenomenonin the nineteenth century, and we can't talk about it everywhere, so instead, we're goingto focus on one case study: japan. you thought i was going to say germany, didn't you? nope.you can bite me, bismarck.
japan had been fragmented and feudal untilthe late sixteenth century, when a series of warrior landowners managed to consolidatepower. eventually, power came to the tokugawa family, who created a military government,or bakufu. the first tokugawa to take power was ieyasu,who took over after the death of one of the main unifiers of japan, toyotomi hideyoshi,sometimes known as "the monkey," although his wife called him - and this is true - "thebald rat." in 1603, ieyasu convinced the emperor, whowas something of a figurehead, to grant him the title of shogun. and for the next 260years or so, the tokugawa bakufu was the main government of japan. the primary virtue ofthis government was not necessarily its efficiency
or its forward-thinking policies, but itsstability. stability: the most underrated of governmental virtues. let's go to the thoughtbubble. the tokugawa bakufu wasn't much for centralization,as power was mainly in the hands of local lords called daimyo. one odd feature of thetokugawa era was the presence of a class of warriors who, by the nineteenth century, hadbecome mostly bureaucrats. you may have heard of them: the samurai. one of the things that made this hereditaryclass so interesting was that each samurai was entitled to an annual salary from the daimyocalled a stipend. this privilege basically paid them off and assured that they didn't become restlesswarriors, plaguing the countryside - that is, bandits.
we tend to think of samurai as noble and honorable,but urban samurai, according to andrew gordon's book a modern history of japan, they were"a rough-and-tumble lot. samurai gang wars - a west side story in the shadows of edocastle - were frequent in the early 1600s." and you still say that history books are boring. as with kings and lesser nobles anywhere,the central bakufu had trouble controlling the more powerful daimyo, who were able tobuild up their own strength because of their control over local resources. this poor controlalso made it really difficult to collect taxes, so the tokugawa were already a bit on theropes when two foreign events rocked japan. first was china's humiliating defeat in theopium wars, after which western nations forced
china to give europeans special trade privileges.it was a wake-up call to see the dominant power in the region so humbled, but even worsefor the tokugawa was the arrival of matthew perry. no, thought bubble, matthew perry.yes, that one. the tokugawa are somewhat famous for theirnot-so-friendly policy toward foreigners, especially western christian ones, for whom thepenalty for stepping foot on japanese soil was death. the tokugawa saw christianity in much thesame way as the romans had, as an unsettling threat to stability. and in the case of matthewperry, they had reason to be worried. thanks, thought bubble. so the american navalcommodore arrived in japan in 1853 with a flotilla of ships and a determination to openjapan's markets.
just the threat of american steam-poweredwarships was enough to convince the bakufu to sign some humiliating trade treaties thatweren't unlike the ones that china had signed after losing the opium wars. and this only further motivated the daimyoand samurai, who were ready to give the tokugawa the boot. within a few years, they would. so what does this have to do with nationalism?well, plenty. first off, even though the americans and the japanese didn't go to war... yet,the perceived threat provided an impetus for japan to start thinking about itself differently. it also resulted in the japanese being convincedthat if they wanted to maintain their independence,
they would have to reconstitute their countryas a modern nation-state. this looks a lot like what was happening inegypt or even germany, with external pressures leading to calls for greater national consolidation. so the tokugawa didn't give up without a fight,but the civil war between the stronger daimyo and the bakufu eventually led to the end ofthe shogunate. and in 1868, the rebels got the newly-enthronedemperor meiji to abolish the bakufu and proclaim a restoration of the imperial throne. nowthe emperor didn't have much real power, but he became a symbolic figure, a representativeof a mythical past around whom modernizers could build a sense of national pride.and in place of bakufu, japan created one
of the most modern nation-states in the world. after some trial and error, the meiji leaderscreated a european-style cabinet system of government with a prime minister, and in 1889,promulgated a constitution that even contained a deliberative assembly, the diet, althoughthe cabinet ministers weren't responsible to it. samurai were incorporated into this systemas bureaucrats and their stipends were gradually taken away. and soon the japanese governmentdeveloped into, like, something of a meritocracy. japan also created a new conscript army. beginningin 1873, all japanese men were required to spend three years in the military. the programwas initially very unpopular - there were more than a dozen riots in 1873 and 1874, inwhich crowds attacked military registration centers.
but eventually, serving in the army createda patriotic spirit and a loyalty to the japanese emperor. the meiji leaders also institutedcompulsory education in 1872, requiring both boys and girls to attend four years of elementaryschool. oh, it's time for the open letter? an open letter to public education. but first,let's see what's in the secret compartment today. oh, it's a graduation hat. thanks, meredith theintern, for letting me borrow your graduation hat. dear public education, when you were introducedin japan, you were very unpopular, because you were funded by a new property tax. infact, you were so unpopular that at least two thousand schools were destroyed by rioters,primarily through arson. stan, it doesn't look good when you bringit in close like that. i look like a 90-year-old swimmer.
and even though public education has provedextremely successful, lots of people still complain about having to pay taxes for it,so let me explain something. public education does not exist for the benefitof students or for the benefit of their parents. it exists for the benefit of the social order.we have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. you do not need to be a student or have achild who is a student to benefit from public education. every second of every day of yourlife, you benefit from public education! so let me explain why i like to pay taxesfor schools, even though i don't personally have a kid in school. it's because i don't likeliving in a country with a bunch of stupid people.
best wishes,john green. in japan, nationalism meant modernization,largely inspired by, and in competition with, the west. so the meiji government establisheda functioning tax system, they built public infrastructure like harbors and telegraphlines, invested heavily in railroads and created a uniform national currency. but the dark side of nationalism began toappear early on. in 1869, the meiji rulers expanded japan's borders to include the islandof hokkaido, and in 1879, they acquired okinawa after forcing its king to abdicate. in 1874, japan even invaded taiwan with aneye toward colonizing it, though they weren't
successful. and in these early actions, wealready see that nationalism has a habit of thriving on conflict. and often, the projectof creating a nation-state goes hand-in-hand with preventing others from doing the same. this failure to imagine the other complexlyisn't new, but it's about to get a lot more problematic, as we'll see next week, when wediscuss european imperialism. thanks for watching. crash course is produced and directed by stanmuller. our script supervisor is danica johnson. we're ably interned by meredith danko andour graphics team is thought bubble. raoul meyer: also, the show was written bymy high school history student, john green, and myself, raoul meyer.
john: last week's phrase of the week was "beardedmarxist." if you'd like to guess at this week's phrase of the week or suggest future ones,you can do so in comments, where you can also ask questions about today's video that willbe answered by our team of historians. thanks for watching crash course, and as we say inmy hometown, don't forget to be awesome!
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