Friedrich Ratzel's discourse on Japan

Abstract

Friedrich Ratzel wrote several papers (1878, 1879, 1895, and 1895) and book reviews (1881, 1887, 1894, 1895 and 1897) relating to Japan. The examination of his writings revealed Ratzel's discourse on Japan. This paper makes it clear that: Ratzel was interested in Japan and maintained study and a material collection throughout his academic career. At the watershed of 1895 when Japan won the Sino-Japanese War, his negative evaluation of Japan turned to a positive one. Ratzel's sense of values with reference to European culture and his contempt for an uncivilized race in East Asia were obvious. With Japan's defeat of China, Ratzel realized the characteristics of a land of islands and a marine nation, which were common to England. Ratzel expected that Japan would follow the achievements of England in the near future. According to Ratzel, because the Japanese were a marine nation with high learning-ability, and which followed European behaviour, they succeeded in the reexpansion of marine transport over the ocean, and exceeded their neighbours China and Korea. Ratzel's continuing study of Japan could be a synthetic chorography, which describes and explains a peculiar combination between a land of islands in the Pacific Ocean and a marine nation with high learning-ability.