The role of the higher education in physics in the industrialization of Japan

Abstract

Industrialization was a kingpin in Japan’s fast transition from an isolationist country to a great power, beginning in the last decades of the nineteenth century. As industrialization demands a technical know-how, and self-sufficiency was a main point in Japan’s development goals, basic scientific higher education, especially in physics, played an important role in its nation building project. Relying on secondary sources, the present article shows how Japan proceeded from a stage of policy experimentation and foreign assistance to a stage of effective organization and independence as a country, in a system where educational, governmental and military institutions worked closely