SocietyEast Asia
Tokugawa Japan closes itself
Two centuries without war, and almost without foreigners
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The isolation was not total: through Dejima in Nagasaki, Japanese scholars followed European medicine and astronomy in what was called "Dutch learning". Edo grew into the world's largest city with over a million people, and literacy on a level with Europe's best. The long peace is an important reason Japan could industrialise so fast after 1868.
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After a century of civil war the Tokugawa family unified Japan and closed the country. Only a few Dutchmen were allowed to trade, from an artificial island. The peace lasted two hundred and fifty years.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org