ABSTRACT
Early Meiji was a period in which the vogue for Western things was widespread and the tide of "civilization and enlightenment" swept through all facets of Japanese life. Most of these "cultural nationalists" were rational men who wanted to adopt the best from the West without having the people lose either their appreciation of things Japanese or their sense of cultural or national identity. In literature, expressions of cultural nationalism did not appear as distinctly as they did in the visual arts. During the early years of Meiji, translations of Western novels were read and political novels with Western themes were written. To what extent economic changes in the Meiji era improved the quantity and quality of Japan's food supply would be difficult to assess. It was in cotton textile production that Japan's industrial revolution first occurred, with the extensive use of machinery in large plants.
