Muhammad Ali emerged as leader of Egypt in 1805, following the invasion by Napoleon in 1798 and French withdrawal in 1801.

• Albanian commander sent by the Ottoman Sultan to restore

Ottoman imperial control.

• Modernized Egypt by focusing on the military, economy, and dispossessed the Mamluks of their land and privileges.

• Encouraged farmers to grow cash crops such as cotton and Established a monopsony (single-buyer system)

• Est. prices to buy grain & cotton from farmers, and resold those commodities at market price. Money to the Government.

• Grain prices were high as a result of Napoleonic Wars

• After 1816 -- sent students to Italy, France, and England.

  1. 1. French Military became the model for Egyptain army

     2. drafted peasants to serve as infantry

     3. established Military schools

• hired French and Italian officers to train his troops

• 1. 4. instituted conscription

     5. built factories to supply The army (uniforms and weapons).

• 1820 -- Muhammad Ali had established himself as the effective ruler of Egypt, which was the most powerful land in the Muslim world

  • • he remained nominally subordinate to the Ottoman sultan

• 1821-Egypt takes control of Sudan

* 1826-Egypt supports Sultans forces during the Greek war of Independence

British Intervention:

• 1839-Muhammad Ali’s son Ibrahim invaded Syria and began pushing towards Istanbul until the European powers intervene.

• 1841-British naval bombardment of Egyptian held coastal cities in Syria forced Egyptian forces to withdraw.

  • Limitations Imposed on Egypt:

    1. 1. Reduced size of army and navy

       2. Dissolved the state economic monopoly

       3. Forced to allow Europeans to undertake business ventures

• 1851-first railroad begun in Egypt

• 1863-1879-Ismail westernizes Egypt

• 1869-Suez Canal opens

• 1882-British occupy Egypt

After 1853, when the Tokugawa shogun and his government, the bakufu, into signing unequal treaties providing political and economic privileges similar to those obtained earlier from the Qing dynasty in China, opposition forces in Japan used the humiliating intrusion of foreigners as an excuse to overthrow the discredited shogun and the Tokugawa bakufu.

1868-- Japan’s new rulers, the boy emperor Mutsuhito—subsequently known by his regnal name, Meiji (“Enlightened Rule”)—took the reins of power, and worked for the transformation of Japanese society to achieve political and economic equality with foreign powers.

Meiji Goals:

• a conservative coalition of daimyo, imperial princes, court nobles, and samurai formed a new government dedicated to the twin goals of prosperity and strength: “rich country, strong army.”

• Meiji government sent many students and officials abroad to study everything from technology to constitutions, and it also hired foreign experts to facilitate economic development and the creation of indigenous expertise

Meiji Reforms:

Social

• persuading daimyo to yield their lands to the throne in exchange for patents of nobility

  • • reformers replaced the old domains with prefectures and metropolitan districts controlled by the central government.

    • daimyo found themselves effectively removed from power

• abolished the samurai class and the stipends that supported it

  • • rights of daimyo and samurai to carry swords and wear their hair in the distinctive topknot that signified their military status

• conscript army

  • • deprived the samurai of the military monopoly they had held for centuries

    • some samurai rose in rebellion

• universal primary and secondary education

  • • improve literacy rates

    • Universities provided advanced instruction for the best students, especially in scientific and technical fields

Economic

• revamping the tax system

  • • 1873 the Meiji government converted the grain tax into a fixed-money tax

    • provided the government with predictable revenues

    • left peasants to deal with market fluctuations in grain prices.

    • state also began to assess taxes on the potential productivity of arable land, no matter how much a cultivator actually produced.

      • • guaranteed that only those who maximized production could afford to hold on to their land.

• Free Trade

  • • government also removed barriers to commerce and trade by abolishing guild restrictions and internal tariffs

• Private ownership vs State Ownership

  • • most economic enterprises were privately owned

    • government controlled military industries and established pilot programs to stimulate industrial development

      • • 1880s -- the government sold most of its enterprises to private investors who had close ties to government officials

    • zaibatsu = financial cliques

      • • concentration of enormous economic power in the hands of a small group of people

Government Reforms

• 1889 -- the emperor promulgated the Meiji constitution as “a voluntary gift” to his people

  • • established a constitutional monarchy with a legislature (Diet)

      • • house of nobles

        • elected lower house

    • limited the authority of the Diet and reserved considerable power to the executive branch of government

    • emperor commanded the armed forces, named the prime minister, and appointed the cabinet

      • • Both the prime minister and the cabinet were responsible to the emperor rather than the lower house, as in European parliamentary systems.

    • emperor also had the right to dissolve the parliament

    • whenever the Diet was not in session he had the prerogative of issuing ordinances

    • Effective power thus lay with the emperor, whom the parliament could advise but never control

    • recognized individual rights, but it provided that laws could limit those rights in the interests of the state

    • established property restrictions on the franchise, ensuring that delegates elected to the lower house represented the most prosperous social classes.

• 1890 Election -- less than 5 percent of the adult male population was eligible to cast ballots

Technology

• government promoted modern transportation, communications, and educational infrastructure

• telegraph, railroad, and steamship lines tied local and regional markets into a national economic network

Problems

• Japanese peasants supplied much of the domestic capital that supported the Meiji program of industrialization

  • • The land tax of 1873, which cost peasants 40 to 50 percent of their crop yields, produced almost 90 percent of government revenue during the early years of Meiji development.

• Foreign exchange to purchase industrial equipment came chiefly from the export of textiles produced in a labor-intensive industry staffed by poorly paid workers.

• 1883 and 1884 with a series of peasant uprisings aimed at moneylenders and government offices holding records of loans

  • • authorities imprisoned or executed many leaders of the rebellions

• Hundreds of thousands of families lived in destitution, haunted by malnutrition, starvation, and infanticide.

• the state did not tolerate labor organizations that promoted the welfare of workers: Meiji law treated the formation of unions and the organization of strikes as criminal activities, and the government crushed a growing labor movement in 1901.