The Reestablishment of National Unity
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social order, the Tokugawa preserved in Japan an outdated feudal structure and mentality far longer than they could have lasted in a freer society. What had been essentially a reactionary political and social system when founded in the early seventeenth century was preserved almost intact until the middle of the nineteenth century. Then a Japan still intellectually and socially bound down by an antiquated political system was suddenly confronted again by the Europeans, who during the intervening two centuries had made tremendous strides forward in almost all fields of human endeavor.
