Scottish Political Economy in Meiji Japan (1868-1912) — Fukuzawa Yukichi and Liberal Economic Thought *

In the overall context of Japan's history, there are two sets of events in particular which are understood to have been decisive in their impact: the developments leading to the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when Japan was compelled by Western countries to enter mid-nineteenth-century international society, and total defeat in the Second World War, when Japan profoundly changed its direction as a modern nation-state.