2012-07-30

clara_maria_home: (Default)
2012-07-30 12:53 pm

interesting article about Taisho

The Taisho Era: When modernity ruled Japan's masses

By MICHAEL HOFFMAN
Special to The Japan Times

"Democracy is so popular these days!" — "The Democracy Song," 1919

One hundred years ago this week — on July 30, 1912 — Emperor Meiji passed away and Japan, traveling blind and hardly knowing where it was going, entered a new age.

The Taisho Era (1912-26), sandwiched between the boldly modernizing Meiji Era (1867-1912) and the militarist tide of early Showa (1926-1989), deserves more recognition than it gets.

Taisho is Japan's Jazz Age. Can it be summed up in a phrase? It often is: ero-guro-nansensu — eroticism, grotesquerie, nonsense.

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read the rest at: The Taisho Era: When modernity ruled Japan's masses | The Japan Times Online