Land of the Morning Calm, Land of the Rising Sun: The East Asia Travel Writings of Isabella Bird and George Curzon

Abstract

The developments in East Asia in the late nineteenth century became a matter of great interest to Britain. The rise of Japan and the wrangles among the great powers over China and Korea were some of the issues that put East Asia in the spotlight. In China, Western powers had been contending fiercely for economic and political hegemony since the Opium War. Japan, after abandoning its national policy of seclusion in 1854, carried out the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and was driving towards rapid Westernization. Here modernization took place in a relatively smooth manner and there was no need to fear external threats, but domestic tensions were inevitable. Finally Korea, after being forced to open its doors in 1876, suffered from acute dissensions between conservatives and progressives, and fierce competition between China, Japan and Russia over hegemony in Korea complicated the situation further.