ABSTRACT

Hakubunkan’s development exemplifies three forces crucial to the Meiji publishing industry as a whole. First, in the 1890s, a new class o f innovators and entrepreneurs used their skills to reorga­ nize and redefine the publishing industry. They identified and capitalized upon a dominant trend that moved away from opin­ ion-oriented periodicals and shifted toward encyclopedic maga­ zines with an emphasis on information.