By 1900 Eastern intellectuals, struggling to come to terms with the West’s economic and military superiority, often bought into this theory, though with a twist. Within twenty years of Commodore Perry’s arrival in Tokyo Bay a “Civilization and Enlightenment” movement was translating the classics of the French Enlightenment and British liberalism into Japanese and advocating catching up with the West through democracy, industrialism, and the emancipation of women.
