Power was seized in 1568 by Oda Nobunaga, who used
his military genius to begin a program of pacification and unification
throughout central Japan.
Although he killed himself after being betrayed by his top general, his program
was continued by others and, by 1590, the whole country fell under the rule of Hideyoshi.
Developing grandiose plans, Hideyoshi set off to defeat Korea
and China
unsuccessfully in 1593 and fatally to himself in 1598. At the time of his
death, Hideyoshi had completely rebuilt Kyoto,
which had a swelling population of 500,000 people. Hideyoshi's heir lost
support and a rival government was set up at Edo while
the emperor and the court exercised nominal authority in Kyoto.
In Edo, the Tokugawa family
virtually rebuilt society, imposing a strict hierarchical social structure and
enforcing international seclusion. For the next two dcenturies, Japan
was isolated from the outside world. By the mid-19th century, international
pressure mounted on Japan
to rejoin the world, with the arrival of an American fleet demanding diplomatic
and trade agreements. In Kyoto, a
push to increase the power of the shogun led to a wave of antigovernment
sentiment and a state of internal unrest.
Imperial Restoration
In 1868 the shogun resigned and Japan
was again reunified and began to emerge from its isolation. Kyoto
suffered a considerable loss of status and population with the relocation of
the capital to Edo after over 1000 years. Kyoto
began to increase its status as a center of culture and learning. By 1900 the
city was again pre-eminent in Japan
in education, culture and the arts, as well as excelling in industry. The city
boasted an electricity system, water system, transport network and
hydroelectric power generation.
In 1926 Emperor Hirohito took the throne, and a
rising tide of nationalism coincided with the world depression and internal
political strife. By 1940 Japan
was at war with China,
having invaded Manchuria in 1931, and had signed
treaties with Italy
and Germany. Japan
attacked the United States
by bombing Pearl Harbor and attempted to conquer large
parts of the Pacific and Asia. The United
States and its allies defeated Japan
after a three and a half year war, cumulating in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
Post War Kyoto
Japan
had suffered greatly by the time of their unconditional surrender in 1945,
although Kyoto had escaped the
devastation of mass-bombings and atomic attack. The Kyoto Revival Plan was
drafted in 1945, and by 1949 the city's university had already produced the
first in a long line of Nobel Prize winners. By the late 1950s, Japan's
economic miracle had made Kyoto an
international hub of business and culture. Kyoto
rode high on the back of technology and tourism through the 1970s and '80s. With
the economic slowdown that started in Japan
in 1989, Kyoto again suffered.
Subsequent recovery has been slow but steady.