Prehistory 

Archaeological research indicates that Japan was already occupied by primitive humans between 35 and 100 thousand years ago during the Paleolithic period. Around 8000 years ago there were manufactured the world's oldest pottery. It is believed that these first peoples are the ancestors of the Japanese and the Ainu. From 300 BC Yayoi period begins, which is marked by technologies of rice cultivation and irrigation, brought by migrants from Korea, China and other parts of Asia. Japan was connected to Asia, which facilitated the migration to the Japanese archipelago.

Principle of monarchy

The Japanese imperial family remains continuously on the throne since the beginning of the monarchical period, in the sixth century AD. According to the religious point of view, the emperors traced their ancestry to the reign of the gods on earth, which were descended and the Emperor Jinmu, brother of Prince Giulio is the first deadly imperial lineage.

Feudalismo Incorporado

The accumulation of large tracts of land and planting in private hands enabled the rise of local administrat

ors, the Daimyo. As their lands were removed from the lists of taxes, increased the income of that class. Gradually, administrators began to repel interference funcionáriovassos provincial and central, and created its own forces to maintain order in their areas. Thus, the tenth century was a complete mess. The aristocrats of Kyoto had no power to enforce orders outside the capital and the state, since the former army had degenerated and the new had become a sort of haven where the nobles and related occupied gravy. In some places, the very people arming thems

elves to protect themselves. The "peace officers"appointed by the central government could do little because they lacked local support. Accelerated the fragmentation of power. In 1156 a succession dispute brought the Warriors countryside to the capital, where they settled.

Unified

In the sixteenth century still lingered disorder and defragmentation in Japan, which once had, from 1335 to 1392, two imperial courts. But at the end of the sixteenth century, had achieved substantial unification, or at least peace. This was the work of three great generals: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Men of military capability have created a stable base for the army of the Tokugawa administration, which lasted until 1867.

From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, Japan remained isolated from the rest of the world. The country went through a policy of isolation called Sakoku ("closed country"). During that time was ruled by the Tokugawa clan.

Due to this isolation, Japan did not become industrialized with the rest of the world and stayed in the feudal society of the Tokugawa regime. (See the Tokugawa Shogunate). During this period the capital was Edo to Tokyo today. (Edo Period is the period from 1603 to 1867, featuring the Tokugawa government).

Reasons for the isolation

We can not fail to mention the commercial relations with the Netherlands. Unlike the Portuguese, who also wanted to evangelize the Japanese, the Dutch had only commercial intent with the Country of the Rising Sun.

Japan, and has been ruled by a feudal dictatorship that has adopted a policy of isolation, it had another crucial reason to have remained isolated until the 1850s:

Interests World Economy: Japan has just suffered its modernization during the period when it happened because of U.S. intervention. The U.S. interest in building ties with Japan was on the need for U.S. hegemony: They wanted allies in strategic locations in Asia and the Pacific.

Before that, the world economic context, which moved the trade were spices, raw materials, products and tropical vegetable virgin lands. Japan, being a country of small territory, formed by mountains and plains and narrow with limited arable land, not attracted traders nor the colonial powers such as the tropical countries. (Yes there was some pressure for trade, as Japan was a point strategic, with a potential consumer market).

Another reason it has been isolated and the Tokugawa government had closed the country was to protect the hegemony that the clan (Tokugawa) and had to maintain the stability that Japan had achieved. How so? The European powers, his achievements in the world (of religious, political, economic, etc.) were involved in these conflicts in Asia. Struggled to achieve a "monopoly of commercial relations" (a kind of colonial pact) with countries like Japan

With Japan already unified "in peace", the Tokugawa had to end the vulnerability of Japan, or remove him from the midst of this battlefield. Thus, traders and catechizers expelled and even banned the practice of Christianity (which threatened the existing order).

Therefore, more or less 1637 to 1868, the Land of the Rising Sun was isolated from the rest of the world. In the period when he returned to open, the government ended the Tokugawa clan, and Japan no longer has to return to the Shogunate Empire molds. This transition in which Japan has modernized and there was a clash between the feudal Japanese culture and Western capitalist culture became known as the Meiji Revolution.