Ancient Map, Modern State: Toward a Geo-History of the Meiji Restoration
The continuing career of Shinano Province as present-day Nagano Prefecture suggests that the reformers of the Meiji era (1868-1912) recruited classical geography to the cause of administrative reform. Under the guise of new toponyms, nineteenth-century oligarchs effectively reinscribed an ancient set of imperial boundaries on the landscape of modern Japan. This classicizing strategy was not […]