In 1853, the tranquility of Japan’s centuries-old isolation was shattered by the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s American fleet. Perry had been assigned a mission by the American President Millard Fillmore to open Japan to foreign trade, by force if necessary. That was a pivotal moment in Japanese history, marking the end of over two centuries of isolation under the Tokugawa shogunate.
For centuries, Japan had existed in a feudal state, a world apart from the rapid industrialisation and global power struggles of the West. Japan had adhered to a policy of Sakoku – complete seclusion from the world – and had a rigid social structure that limited technological progress. The arrival of the American fleet highlighted the backwardness of the Japanese nation, forcing it to consider a different path.
