From 1868 to 1945 imperial Japan was governed by shifting coalitions of several dissimilar elite groups. In this historical analysis of the examination system that regulated access to the inner civil bureaucracy and shaped its political outlook, Professor Spaulding describes the steps by which Japan came to accept examinations as the key to office. The reasons for this acceptance are discussed by (1) piecing together fragmentary clues from government decrees, official memoirs, and the comparative history of Japanese higher education, political parties, and constitution, and (2) a quantitative analysis of many aspects of the civil service, showing why examinations were instituted, why they were ineffective at first, and how they worked after the system was reformed in 1899. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This volume presents an analysis of Japan's powerful upper bureaucracy in the post-war period. The author’s aim is to provide an empirical foundation for the many impressionistic accounts of Japanese bureaucracy and a systematic basis for comparative studies of bureaucracies in other countries. The study ranges from the family and geographic backgrounds of higher civil servants through their educational training and career patterns to their retirement and post-retirement activities. Throughout, the emphasis is on assembling and analyzing the kind of systematic data that provide a solid basis for understanding how the Japanese bureaucracy actually works. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Written by one of the foremost historians of Chinese institutions, this book focuses on China's civil service examination system in its final and most elaborate phase during the Ch'ing dynasty. All aspects of this labyrinthine system are explored: the types of questions, the style and form in which they were to be answered, the problem of cheating, and the psychological and financial burdens of the candidates, the rewards of the successful and the plight of those who failed. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Chinese novels, short stories, and plays, this thought provoking and entertaining book brings to vivid life the testing structure that supplied China's government bureaucracy for almost fourteen hundred years. "Professor Miyazaki's informative work is concerned with a system. . . that was, in effect, . . . the basic institution of Chinese political life, the real pillar which supported the imperial monarchy, the effective vehicle for the aspirations and ambitions of the ruling class. Imperial China without the examination system for the past thousand years and more would have developed in an entirely different way and might not have endured as the continuing form of government over a huge empire."--Pacific Affairs "The most comprehensive narrative treatment in any language of [this] enduring achievement of Chinese civilization."--American Historical Review

First Published in 1971. This annotated bibliography of doctoral dissertations on Japan and Korea grew out of a decision to expand and bring up to date an earlier list entitled Unpublished Doctoral Dissertations Relating to Japan, Accepted in the Universities of Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, 1946-1963, compiled by Peter Cornwall and issued by the Center for Japanese Studies in 1965.