Comparing Industrialization in Egypt and Japan
Driving Question: How did Egypt and Japan experience industrialization in the nineteenth century?
Industrialization didn’t follow the same path everywhere. In this lesson, you’ll explore how Egypt and Japan each responded to the global spread of industrialization. By comparing their goals, challenges, and outcomes, you’ll consider why some countries successfully industrialized—while others struggled to keep up.
Learning Objectives:
- Use evidence to evaluate how industrialization spread to Egypt and Japan.
- Use the historical thinking practice of comparison to explore how two different nations attempted to industrialize in the nineteenth century.
- Use a graphic biography to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives of this period.
Vocab Terms:
Would you stop the wheels of change if you could? Explore some hypotheticals to decide what—if anything—you’d do different if given the chance.
Did you know: Baseball’s extraordinary popularity in Japan led some schools to ban it and the government to pass restrictions in the 1930s to deal with student obsession with the sport. Teachers and officials worried that baseball was hurting academics, with students skipping class, staying in school extra years to play, and treating baseball as their most important subject. Let your students know that one of the impacts of the Meiji Restoration included teenagers choosing baseball over schoolwork.
If you want to move behind the “Japan modernized successfully” story you can share this: The Meiji state industrialized fast, but often through top-down reform, heavy taxation, military expansion, and the sacrifice of older social orders. The Iwasaki Yatarō biography is a nice way to show that industrialization created winners and losers. He was among the new business elites—like the future founders of zaibatsu firms (Mitsubishi, for example). These were large, family-controlled industrial organizations that dominated Japan’s economy until 1945.
Japan’s path to industrialization was unlike any other. Read the article and watch the video to discover what made it unique. Then take a closer look at one key figure through a graphic biography.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Need to cover the important skill of historical comparison but feeling a little pressed for time? Read more on “Comparison of Egypt and Japan” in the Community Forum.
How did industrialization take different forms around the world? Explore Egypt’s unique path in the article, then compare what you’ve learned about Egypt and Japan in the activity.
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Guiding Questions
You’ve learned about the different paths to industrialization experienced in Egypt and Japan. In this short activity, you’ll imagine yourself in the shoes of different people in those countries.
The When Countries Industrialized activity lets you extend the lesson beyond Egypt and Japan using the Gapminder tool to help students find evidence for when different regions industrialized. When they’ve finished, ask them if this evidence suggests that Egypt and Japan’s experiences were typical or unusual.
Industrialization spread to different regions and nations at different times. The effects of industrialization on those places varied dramatically.