Elaborations

• describing internal pressures in shogunate Japan (for example the rise of a commercial class at the expense of the samurai, peasant uprisings such as Osaka 1837, and famine)
• describing the increasing exposure to Western technology and ideas (for example the establishment of a naval school with Dutch instructors, the translation of Western books)
• evaluating the significance of the Meiji Restoration of 1868 CE that restored imperial rule to Japan