This book is the first volume of a monograph series published by the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The purpose of the series is to make works by Japanese scholars accessible to a wider readership and to increase the knowledge of scholars in this field, particularly in relation to Asia....

From firewood to coal : deforestation and the development of the silk reeling industry in modern Japan / S. Sugiyama and Izumi Yamada -- The government railways and the procurement of railway sleepers in prewar Japan / Asuka Yamaguchi -- The history of ecological environment : ideas derived from...

Nineteenth-century Japan remains a void in the literature on institutions and growth. Developmental institutions evolved in Japan after the Meiji Restoration despite the absence of political participation. Authoritarian change agents usually face a trade-off between reform and stability: they...