Yukichi Fukazawa and the Making of the Modern World

Yukichi Fukuzawa is arguably the greatest Japanese social thinker of the last three centuries. In numerous books, in particular An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (1973) and Autobiography (1972) he outlined his many ideas, not least on the raised status of women. By setting up bookshops, universities, schools, modern accounting, and modern manufacturing he became one of the principal architects of modern Japan, where his image is still on the highest-denomination Japanese banknote. Through his travels to the West and reading of western philosophy, he discovered the secret essence of civilization and modernity and explained this to his countrymen and women. Alan Macfarlane, F.B.A., is an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Cambridge University and a Life Fellow of King's College. His website is alanmacfarlane.com.