Ikumatsu Fujimoto, PhD – Measurement Engineering, The University of Tokyo; CEO, Okuwa Technical Research Center, Japan

Series: Political Science and History; Asian Political, Economic and Social Issues
BISAC: HIS021000; HIS037060; HIS031000
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52305/STTU7754

This book offers a reinterpretation of the Meiji Restoration as a moral revolution rather than a purely institutional or military one, focusing on three key figures of Chōshū—Nagai Uta, Kusaka Genzui, and Takasugi Shinsaku. Rather than portraying these actors as isolated heroes, the book reconstructs a dynamic process in which vision (insight), conscience (ethical passion), and action (implementation) gradually synchronized, producing regime change with comparatively restrained violence. Central to this analysis is what the author terms spiritual politics: the principle that ethical norms must precede institutions and that institutions, in turn, must shape action. Drawing extensively on primary documents—such as proclamations, prohibitions, logistics registers, and records of surrender and amnesty—the study demonstrates how Chōshū embedded ethical restraint into the very design of political and military operations. Comparative chapters place this model in dialogue with the French Revolution, the Tonghak Peasant War, Gandhian nonviolence, and contemporary digital civic movements, highlighting differing relationships between ideals, means, and outcomes. The book further extends its historical findings to contemporary debates on AI ethics and ESG governance, proposing a heuristic for translating moral principles into institutional design and operational metrics. By reframing concepts such as transparency, restraint, and rapidity as elements of a “moral infrastructure,” it offers a historically grounded yet forward-looking contribution to political theory and applied ethics. Intended for scholars of modern Japanese history, political theory, and ethics—as well as readers interested in comparative revolutions and governance—this work argues that the quiet embedding of ethics into everyday institutions constitutes one of the most enduring legacies of modern Japan’s formation.