MAPS OF HISTORY · IB HISTORY · REMAKING THE STATE
IB HISTORY · 1600 – 2000 · 12 CHAPTERS
IB History: Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia — notes, maps and essay plans
How a samurai elite dismantled its own class and built a modern state and empire in forty years, and why the Soviet Union’s reformers lost the union, the economy and then much of the democracy they had opened.
This page gathers the atlas’s IB notes: where each of its 12 chapters fits the syllabus, the concepts and evidence it supports, practice questions with model essay plans, primary sources, and starting points for the Internal Assessment.
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Where it fits the course
Every chapter’s IB notes name the parts of the course it serves. Across the atlas they add up to this: It is the paired atlas for the Paper 1 Focused Study Political and Economic Transitions, whose page holds a free source-question set.
- Paper 1 · Political and Economic Transitions · 12 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Authoritarian Rule · 5 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Conflict · 3 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Innovation and Transformation · 1 CHAPTER
- Paper 2 · Popular Movements · 2 CHAPTERS
Chapter by chapter
The atlas holds 72 points of evidence and 42 primary sources across 12 chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 are free, so their evidence is shown here in full; for the others you get one point and the practice question, and the rest waits in the atlas. Each chapter title opens the chapter’s free page, with the full explanation.
1. The Closed Country
CHAPTER 1 · 1600–1853 · CONCEPTS: CONTINUITY, CAUSATION
EVIDENCE TO USE · ALL 6 POINTS (A FREE CHAPTER)
- After Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu left “outer” lords such as the Shimazu of Satsuma and the Mōri of Chōshū armed on the rim of Japan, the grey-tan edges of the 1840 map, which placed the future rebels where they were hardest to control.
- The shogun’s own lands and those of his direct retainers produced only about a quarter of Japan’s assessed rice harvest, while some 260 lords called daimyo kept their own samurai, taxes and courts, so the country had no national army and no national tax.
- Alternate attendance, compulsory from 1635, made each daimyo live in Edo every other year and leave his wife and heir there permanently, so the cost of processions and mansions drained domain treasuries and left few lords able to afford rebellion for 250 years.
- In the Tenmei famine of the 1780s Japan’s population fell by more than 900,000, because domains hoarded rice for their own people and the shogunate had no national machinery to move food to the starving, which exposed the human cost of a divided state.
- From 1641 European trade was confined to the Dutch on the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbour, and scholars of “Dutch learning” used its books to study anatomy, astronomy and artillery, so Japan’s elite understood Western power well before 1853.
- The Treaty of Nanking of 29 August 1842 gave Britain Hong Kong, five open ports and 21 million silver dollars, and in the same weeks the shogunate softened its order to fire on foreign ships, an admission that it could not fight.
2. The Black Ships
CHAPTER 2 · 1853–1858 · CONCEPTS: CAUSATION, PERSPECTIVES
EVIDENCE TO USE · ALL 6 POINTS (A FREE CHAPTER)
- Commodore Matthew Perry anchored four American warships, two of them steamers, off Uraga on 8 July 1853 and refused to go to Nagasaki, which showed that steam power had made the shogunate’s rules for receiving foreigners impossible to enforce.
- In 1853 the senior councillor Abe Masahiro sent the American letter to the daimyo and to the imperial court for their advice, so the shogunate admitted for the first time that it could no longer decide foreign policy alone.
- The Treaty of Kanagawa of 31 March 1854 opened only Shimoda and Hakodate for coal, water and supplies and contained no trade clause, because the negotiator Hayashi Akira kept one out, which shows Japanese officials limiting a concession made under threat.
- The Harris treaty of 29 July 1858 opened Kanagawa, Nagasaki and Hakodate from 1859, fixed Japan’s import tariffs and gave foreigners extraterritoriality, the right to be tried by their own consuls, so Japan lost control of its courts and customs.
- Because an ounce of gold bought about five of silver in Japan against about fifteen abroad, gold drained out until the shogunate minted lighter gold coins in 1860, and Osaka rice prices rose several times over by 1867, making inflation a political grievance.
- Ii Naosuke had the Harris treaty signed although Emperor Kōmei had refused his approval, and when samurai, most of them from Mito, killed Ii outside Edo Castle on 24 March 1860, the shogunate’s defiance of the throne had become a crisis of legitimacy.
3. The Fall of the Shogunate
CHAPTER 3 · 1858–1869 · CONCEPTS: CAUSATION, CHANGE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- Western navies punished the domains most committed to expelling foreigners, since British warships shelled Kagoshima in August 1863 and seventeen allied warships silenced Chōshū’s forts at Shimonoseki in September 1864, which convinced both domains to buy Western rifles and steamships.
Practice question: Evaluate the reasons why Satsuma and Chōshū were able to overthrow the shogunate between 1863 and 1869.
5 more points of evidence, 3 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 3 in the atlas.
4. Dismantling the Old Order
CHAPTER 4 · 1868–1877 · CONCEPTS: CHANGE, CONSEQUENCE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- The Charter Oath of 6 April 1868 promised assemblies and “all matters decided by public discussion”, while its pledge to break the “base customs of the past” licensed sweeping change, so the leaders could invoke it for reform long before any assembly met.
Practice question: Discuss the view that the abolition of the domains in 1871 was a more important change than the restoration of 1868.
5 more points of evidence, 3 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 4 in the atlas.
5. Building the Meiji State
CHAPTER 5 · 1877–1894 · CONCEPTS: CHANGE, PERSPECTIVES
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- The Iwakura Mission spent 21 months in the United States and Europe from December 1871, failed to revise the unequal treaties and returned convinced that factories, schools and laws had to come first, which set the order of the reforms that followed.
Practice question: How far was the Freedom and People’s Rights movement responsible for the introduction of the Meiji constitution in 1889?
5 more points of evidence, 4 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 5 in the atlas.
6. A Great Power
CHAPTER 6 · 1894–1912 · CONCEPTS: CONSEQUENCE, SIGNIFICANCE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- When a Donghak peasant rebellion led Korea to ask China for troops in 1894, Japan sent a larger force, seized the royal palace in Seoul and declared war in August, because its leaders saw control of the peninsula as vital to Japan’s security.
Practice question: Compare and contrast the causes and consequences of Japan’s wars with China (1894–1895) and Russia (1904–1905).
5 more points of evidence, 4 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 6 in the atlas.
7. The Stagnant Superpower
CHAPTER 7 · 1964–1985 · CONCEPTS: CONTINUITY, CAUSATION
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- Brezhnev’s promise of “stability of cadres” ended the purges and reshuffles of the Khrushchev years, so by 1980 the average age of the Politburo, the party’s ruling committee, was about seventy. The regime had bought its elite’s loyalty with security.
Practice question: Evaluate the methods by which the Soviet leadership maintained its rule between 1964 and 1985.
5 more points of evidence, 3 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 7 in the atlas.
8. Gorbachev’s Gamble
CHAPTER 8 · 1985–1989 · CONCEPTS: CHANGE, CAUSATION
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- Gorbachev’s campaign against drinking, launched in May 1985, cut one of the budget’s largest sources of income. World oil prices fell at the same moment, from about 27 dollars a barrel in 1985 to around 14 in 1986, so the state printed money.
Practice question: To what extent did Gorbachev’s own reforms, rather than pressure from below, undermine the Communist Party’s control of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1989?
5 more points of evidence, 3 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 8 in the atlas.
9. The Union Unravels
CHAPTER 9 · 1989–1991 · CONCEPTS: CAUSATION, SIGNIFICANCE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- On 23 August 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, about two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians formed the Baltic Way, a human chain some 675 km long. The protest turned a buried grievance into a mass demand for independence.
Practice question: Discuss the importance of national popular movements in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991.
5 more points of evidence, 4 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 9 in the atlas.
10. Shock Therapy
CHAPTER 10 · 1992–1993 · CONCEPTS: CONSEQUENCE, PERSPECTIVES
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- On 2 January 1992 Yegor Gaidar’s government freed most prices at once, and goods returned to the shops, yet prices rose about 2,500% over the year and wiped out the savings that Soviet citizens had built up.
Practice question: Examine the consequences of shock therapy for the Russian people and for Russian politics in 1992–1993.
5 more points of evidence, 4 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 10 in the atlas.
11. A State at War with Itself
CHAPTER 11 · 1994–1998 · CONCEPTS: CAUSATION, CONSEQUENCE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- Tatarstan, where Russians made up about two-fifths of the population, signed a treaty with Moscow on 15 February 1994. The republic stayed inside Russia with control over its oil, budget and much of its law, so bargaining held the federation together.
Practice question: How far was the outbreak of war in Chechnya in December 1994 the result of the weakness of the Russian state?
5 more points of evidence, 3 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 11 in the atlas.
12. Two Transitions Compared
EPILOGUE · 1999–2000 · CONCEPTS: CHANGE, CONTINUITY, SIGNIFICANCE
EVIDENCE TO USE · 1 OF 6
- Japan’s leaders abolished the domains in August 1871, three years after the restoration, and granted a constitution only in 1889. By then they had built an army, a national tax and industry, so central authority came before participation.
Practice question: Compare and contrast the ways in which the sequencing of political and economic reform shaped the outcomes of the Meiji transition (1868–1912) and the post-Soviet transition (1985–2000).
5 more points of evidence, 4 primary sources and the model plan for this question are in the IB notes of chapter 12 in the atlas.
Practice questions and essay plans
Every chapter ends with a practice question and a model plan: a thesis, three points with evidence and a link back to the question, a counter-argument and a judgement. The plan for chapter 1 is shown in full; for the others, here is the outline, and the rest is in the atlas.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 1
Examine the methods by which the Tokugawa shogunate maintained its rule over Japan between 1635 and 1853.
The shogunate maintained its rule by keeping the lords weak through geography and expense, by filtering every contact with the outside world, and by leaving local government to the domains. These methods kept the peace for 250 years because they were designed against internal rivals, and that same design left the state with no national army or tax when a foreign threat arrived.
Geography and expense kept potential rivals weak.
EVIDENCEAfter Sekigahara the fudai lords, hereditary Tokugawa vassals, held the centre around Edo, Kyoto and Osaka, while outer lords such as the Shimazu and Mōri sat on the rim. From 1635 alternate attendance made every daimyo live in Edo in alternate years and leave his wife and heir there.
LINKProcessions and mansions drained the domains, so few lords could afford to rebel.
Controlled contact removed any outside support for a rebel.
EVIDENCEThe edicts of the 1630s banned Christianity, forbade Japanese to go abroad on pain of death and confined European trade to the Dutch on Dejima, while relations with Korea, Ryukyu and the Ainu passed through three loyal domains.
LINKThe shogunate decided what entered Japan, so no discontented lord could easily find foreign allies.
Delegation bought the lords’ acceptance at the price of central power.
EVIDENCEThe shogun governed only about a quarter of the country directly, and some 260 daimyo ran their own samurai, taxes and courts; when Mizuno Tadakuni tried to bring the land around Edo and Osaka under direct control in 1843, he was forced out within months.
LINKRule rested on balance and consent among the lords, which made it stable and hard to reform.
It can be argued that these methods were already failing before 1853. Domains and samurai sank into debt to merchants, the Tenmei famine of the 1780s cut the population by more than 900,000, and in 1837 Ōshio Heihachirō’s rising burned a fifth or more of Osaka, which showed discontent inside the ruling class itself.
The methods worked against the danger they were built for, since no lord challenged the shogun for 250 years. Internal strains made the order vulnerable, yet the decisive test came from outside. In 1842 the Opium War showed that a state designed to prevent civil war had no means of resisting a foreign navy.
Read the chapter behind this plan: The Closed Country.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 3
Evaluate the reasons why Satsuma and Chōshū were able to overthrow the shogunate between 1863 and 1869.
Satsuma and Chōshū won because by 1868 they combined three advantages: armies that recruited beyond the samurai and fought with modern rifles, a claim to the emperor’s authority, and unity between former rivals. Military organisation decided the battles, while the imperial banner decided how few domains were willing to fight for the shogun.
Military reform made the south-western domains stronger than their size.
The emperor’s name gave the rebellion legitimacy and split the shogun’s camp.
The alliance of 1866 ended the rivalry that had protected the shogunate.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 3 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: The Fall of the Shogunate.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 10
Examine the consequences of shock therapy for the Russian people and for Russian politics in 1992–1993.
Shock therapy ended the shortages of the late Soviet years and made private ownership hard to reverse, while its costs fell on savers, pensioners and workers. Those losses turned the old parliament against the president, and the conflict ended in October 1993 with force and a constitution that placed the presidency above parliament.
Freeing prices restored goods to the shops at the cost of household savings.
Privatisation created a class of owners, most of them insiders.
Hardship turned an economic shock into a constitutional crisis.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 10 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Shock Therapy.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 4
Discuss the view that the abolition of the domains in 1871 was a more important change than the restoration of 1868.
The abolition of the domains was the more important change, because 1868 replaced the shogun at the top while leaving more than 260 lords in control of their soldiers and taxes. Abolition in 1871 changed how Japan was governed and made conscription, the land tax and national schools possible. The restoration mattered as the precondition, since it gave the reformers the emperor’s authority.
The restoration left the old structure of power in place.
Abolition created the national institutions of the Meiji state.
Abolition also ended the samurai as a ruling class.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 4 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Dismantling the Old Order.
Primary sources
Each chapter’s IB notes carry primary sources with their origin and the context you need before reading them. The sources of chapter 1 are shown in full here.
TEXT · CHAPTER 1
Articles for Nagasaki (the “closed country” edict of 1635), articles 1–5, 8 and 14
- CREATOR
- The Tokugawa shogunate, to its two commissioners at Nagasaki
- DATE
- Fifth month of Kan’ei 12 (summer 1635)
- ORIGIN
- Order of seventeen articles sent to the shogunate’s commissioners at Nagasaki; text as printed in the Tokugawa kinrei kō, the Meiji government’s compilation of shogunal laws
Context. The shogunate sent this order to the two officials who governed Nagasaki for it, and it belongs to a series of edicts of 1633–39 that later writers grouped together as the “closed country” (sakoku) edicts. “Padres”, a word borrowed from Portuguese, were Catholic missionary priests, whose faith the shogunate had banned.
Translation: Maps of History, from the Japanese text (Tokugawa kinrei kō, as transcribed online) · original ↗
TEXT · CHAPTER 1
“An Enquiry, whether it be conducive for the good of the Japanese Empire, to keep it shut up, as it now is, and not to suffer its inhabitants to have any Commerce with foreign nations, either at home or abroad”
- CREATOR
- Engelbert Kaempfer, translated from the German by J. G. Scheuchzer
- DATE
- Written about 1692; published in English in London in 1727
- ORIGIN
- Essay in the appendix to Kaempfer’s posthumous The History of Japan (London, 1727); text from the Glasgow reprint of Scheuchzer’s translation (1906), volume 3, appendix, essay 6
Context. Kaempfer, a German doctor employed by the Dutch on Dejima, travelled with the Dutch mission to Edo in 1691 and 1692. “His subjects” are those of the reigning shogun, Tsunayoshi, whom Kaempfer describes as the ruler on Japan’s “secular Throne”.
Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, trans. J. G. Scheuchzer (London, 1727); Glasgow: MacLehose, 1906, vol. 3; Internet Archive · original ↗
TEXT · CHAPTER 1
Treaty of Nanking, articles 2, 3 and 7
- CREATOR
- Governments of Great Britain and Qing China (signed by Sir Henry Pottinger and the commissioners Keying and Elepoo)
- DATE
- 29 August 1842
- ORIGIN
- Peace treaty signed aboard the British warship Cornwallis at Nanking at the end of the Opium War; English text
Context. Britain fought the Opium War of 1839–42 after Chinese officials at Canton made British merchants hand over their opium in March 1839. The shogunate followed the war through the news reports that the Dutch at Dejima had to submit every year.
Treaty text (1842), Wikisource · original ↗
PICTURE · CHAPTER 1
Japan in 1840: the shogun’s lands and the domains
- CREATOR
- Maps of History
- DATE
- Reconstruction made in 2026 of the situation in 1840
- ORIGIN
- Map drawn from the atlas’s geodata (Natural Earth, with domain borders following the modern prefectures), after Totman, Early Modern Japan, and Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan
Context. A modern reconstruction, not a document of the period: it simplifies some 260 domains into larger blocks and shows the shogun’s direct lands and his hereditary vassals together.
Maps of History (own work); base geography Natural Earth (public domain)
Every other source in the atlas (38)
- Chapter 2: The Black Ships
- Letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan Millard Fillmore, President of the United States · 13 November 1852 (delivered in July 1853)
- Treaty of Kanagawa (Treaty of Peace and Amity), articles 2, 9 and 11 Commodore Matthew C. Perry for the United States; Hayashi Akira and three other commissioners for the shogunate · 31 March 1854
- Treaty of Amity and Commerce (the Harris treaty), articles 3, 4 and 6 Townsend Harris for the United States; two commissioners of the shogunate · 29 July 1858
- Chapter 3: The Fall of the Shogunate
- The Eight-Point Plan (Senchū hassaku) Attributed to Sakamoto Ryōma · 1867 (traditional date)
- Memorial returning governing power to the emperor (Taisei hōkan) Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth shogun · 14th day of the 10th month of Keiō 3 (November 1867)
- A Diplomat in Japan, chapter 24 Ernest Satow, interpreter at the British legation · Events of January 1868; book published in London in 1921
- Chapter 4: Dismantling the Old Order
- The Charter Oath (Gokajō no goseimon) Sworn by Emperor Mutsuhito; drafted by officials of the new government · 6 April 1868 (14th day of the 3rd month of Keiō 4)
- Proclamation on conscription (Chōhei kokuyu) Council of State (Dajōkan), in the emperor’s name · 28 December 1872 (28th day of the 11th month of Meiji 5)
- Before and after the abolition of the domains, August 1869 and August 1871 Maps of History · Reconstruction made in 2026
- Chapter 5: Building the Meiji State
- Memorial on the establishment of an elected assembly (Minsen giin setsuritsu kenpakusho) Itagaki Taisuke, Gotō Shōjirō, Etō Shinpei, Soejima Taneomi and four other former samurai · 17 January 1874
- The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, articles 1, 3, 4, 11, 29, 55 and 71 Promulgated by Emperor Mutsuhito; drafted under Itō Hirobumi; translated by Itō Miyoji · 11 February 1889
- Imperial Rescript on Education Emperor Mutsuhito (the Meiji emperor) · 30 October 1890
- Who could vote for Japan’s lower house, 1890–1928 Maps of History, compiled from official election figures · Chart made in 2026 from figures for 1890–1928
- Chapter 6: A Great Power
- Treaty of Shimonoseki, articles 1, 2 and 4 Itō Hirobumi and Mutsu Munemitsu for Japan; Li Hongzhang (Li Hung-Chang) and Li Jingfang (Li Ching-Fong) for China · 17 April 1895
- The Tragedy of Korea, chapter 18, “With the Rebels” F. A. McKenzie, journalist · Events of autumn 1907; book published in 1908
- Treaty regarding the Annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan, preamble and articles 1–2 Terauchi Masatake, Japanese resident-general, and Yi Wan-yong, prime minister of Korea · 22 August 1910 (published 29 August 1910)
- The Japanese empire in August 1910 Maps of History · Reconstruction made in 2026
- Chapter 7: The Stagnant Superpower
- Soviet economic growth, 1961–1985 (CIA estimates) Maps of History, from CIA estimates · Chart made in 2026 from estimates published in the 1980s
- Speech to the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party (the “Brezhnev Doctrine”) Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union · 12 November 1968
- Address to the Nation on the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Jimmy Carter, President of the United States · 4 January 1980
- Chapter 8: Gorbachev’s Gamble
- Law of the USSR on the State Enterprise (Association), Articles 2, 6 and 10 Supreme Soviet of the USSR · 30 June 1987 (in force from 1 January 1988)
- Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 27th Party Congress (on Afghanistan) Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union · 25 February 1986
- Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin Ronald Reagan, President of the United States · 12 June 1987
- Chapter 9: The Union Unravels
- Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (preamble and points 5 and 7) First Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR · 12 June 1990
- Remarks to the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of the Ukraine in Kiev George H. W. Bush, President of the United States · 1 August 1991
- Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (preamble and Articles 1 and 5) Republic of Belarus, RSFSR and Ukraine; signed for Belarus by S. Shushkevich and V. Kebich, for the RSFSR by B. Yeltsin and G. Burbulis, and for Ukraine by L. Kravchuk and V. Fokin · 8 December 1991
- From one union to fifteen states: February 1988 and December 1991 Maps of History · Reconstruction made in 2026
- Chapter 10: Shock Therapy
- Decree No. 297 “On measures to liberalise prices” (points 1–2 and Appendix No. 2) Boris Yeltsin, President of the RSFSR · 3 December 1991
- Russia’s output and prices, 1990–2000 Maps of History, from World Bank and Rosstat data · Chart made in 2026 from data for 1990–2000
- Decree No. 1400 “On stage-by-stage constitutional reform in the Russian Federation” (preamble and point 1) Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation · 21 September 1993
- Constitution of the Russian Federation, Articles 80, 83 and 111 (original text of 1993) Approved by nationwide vote · 12 December 1993
- Chapter 11: A State at War with Itself
- Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan (preamble and Articles 1, 59, 61 and 62) Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Tatarstan · 6 November 1992 (published 30 November 1992)
- Khasavyurt joint statement and “Principles for determining the basis of relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic” Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov, with S. Kharlamov and S. Abumuslimov · 31 August 1996
- The 1996 Russian presidential election Maps of History, from official results · Chart made in 2026 from the results of June and July 1996
- Chapter 12: Two Transitions Compared
- Life expectancy at birth in Russia, 1985–2000 Maps of History, from Rosstat data · Chart made in 2026 from data for 1985–2000
- Decree No. 849 “On the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in a federal district” (preamble, points 1–2 and Regulation point 5) Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation · 13 May 2000
- Russia at the Turn of the Millennium Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation · 30 December 1999
- Two transitions side by side: Meiji Japan and the USSR to Russia Maps of History, compiled from the atlas’s cited sources · 1868–1912 and 1985–2000
Internal Assessment starting points
Each starting point is an idea for an investigation: a question, the concept it tests, the kinds of sources you could use and where they are held, and one caution. The investigation must be your own work, and your teacher approves the question.
How did the Meiji state’s colonisation of Hokkaido change Ainu land and livelihoods between 1869 and 1899?
CONCEPTConsequence
SOURCESReports of the Hokkaido Development Commission (Kaitakushi); the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act of 1899; travellers’ accounts such as Isabella Bird’s Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880); later Ainu testimony such as Kayano Shigeru’s memoir Our Land Was a Forest.
WHERE TO FIND THEMHokkaido University Library, Northern Studies Collection (digitised maps and records); National Diet Library Digital Collections (laws and official reports); Internet Archive (Bird’s 1880 edition).
CAUTIONAlmost every document of the period was written by settlers and officials, so Ainu perspectives come mainly from oral tradition and later memoirs; say whose view each source gives.
What did the official record of the Iwakura Mission conclude Japan should learn from the West, and why?
CONCEPTPerspectives
SOURCESKume Kunitake’s official record of the mission (1878; English translation The Iwakura Embassy, 1871–73, 2002); letters of Ōkubo Toshimichi and Kido Takayoshi; Western newspaper reports of the mission’s visits.
WHERE TO FIND THEMNational Diet Library Digital Collections (the 1878 Japanese edition); Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) for government papers; British Newspaper Archive and Chronicling America for Western press reports.
CAUTIONKume’s record was edited for publication five years after the journey and served the government’s purposes; the 2002 translation is in copyright, so quote it briefly.
Why did the Meiji government fail to stop pollution from the Ashio copper mine between 1890 and 1907?
CONCEPTCausation
SOURCESTanaka Shōzō’s speeches in the Imperial Diet and his petition to the emperor of December 1901; government inspection reports of 1897 and 1902; newspaper reports; farmers’ petitions.
WHERE TO FIND THEMNational Diet Library, Imperial Diet minutes database (Teikoku Gikai Kaigiroku); National Diet Library Digital Collections; for English context, Kenneth Strong’s biography Ox Against the Storm (1977).
CAUTIONMost primary sources are in Japanese; if you rely on translations or secondary works, say so and check how the translator framed the dispute.
How reliable is Ernest Satow’s A Diplomat in Japan (1921) as a source for the fall of the shogunate in 1867–68?
CONCEPTPerspectives
SOURCESSatow’s memoir; his diaries; British legation dispatches to the Foreign Office; Japanese accounts of the same meetings.
WHERE TO FIND THEMUK National Archives, Kew (Satow papers, PRO 30/33; Foreign Office Japan correspondence, FO 46); Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg (the 1921 text).
CAUTIONSatow wrote the memoir half a century later from his diaries, and as a British official he sympathised with Satsuma and Chōshū; compare it with documents written at the time.
What did the striking Kuzbass miners demand in July 1989, and how far were their demands political?
CONCEPTCausation
SOURCESStrike committee demands and agreements with the government; Soviet central and regional newspapers; Western press and radio reports; later interviews with strike leaders.
WHERE TO FIND THEMCurrent Digest of the Soviet Press (English translations, through university libraries); Open Society Archives, Budapest (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute files); Wilson Center Digital Archive.
CAUTIONThe Soviet press was itself changing under glasnost in 1989, so compare central and local papers and note when a report was written.
Why did Tatarstan settle its claim to sovereignty by treaty in 1994 while Chechnya went to war?
CONCEPTCausation
SOURCESThe declarations of sovereignty of 1990–91; the 1992 Tatarstan constitution and the treaty of 15 February 1994; Russian presidential decrees; speeches of Mintimer Shaimiev, Dzhokhar Dudayev and Boris Yeltsin; reports by Human Rights Watch and Memorial.
WHERE TO FIND THEMRussian Wikisource and official legal databases for the texts; Open Society Archives, Budapest (RFE/RL files); the Memorial archive (published reports); Human Rights Watch online report archive.
CAUTIONWeigh structural factors such as geography, economy and the population mix against leaders’ choices, and avoid reading the 1994 war back into the decisions of 1991.
How far do the regional results of the 1996 presidential election show a divide between reform and communist Russia?
CONCEPTSignificance
SOURCESOfficial regional and district results of both rounds; campaign materials of Yeltsin and Zyuganov; Russian and Western press reports; opinion polls of 1996.
WHERE TO FIND THEMCentral Election Commission of the Russian Federation (published results); Russian Election Watch (Belfer Center, Harvard University); Open Society Archives, Budapest.
CAUTIONSome regions recorded sharp swings between the rounds that observers questioned, so test any claim of irregularity against the regional data before using the results as evidence of opinion.
Revision tools
The atlas ends with a map quiz that asks you to find places and moments on the map itself (part of membership and of the Exam Sprint). The quick quiz and the discussion questions with our answers are free pages on this site, and the printable study guide gathers every chapter’s notes into one document for revision.
Read next
- Japan’s industrialisation from above · THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- The Cold War that ended with the Soviet Union · THE COLD WAR
Maps of History is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization. IB course names describe alignment only; paper, theme and section names follow the new course outline and may change when the final guide is published.
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