Ito Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution

The brilliant and influential statesman, Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909), and the first prime minister of Japan’s modern state, has been poorly understood. This biography attempts to set the record straight about Ito’s thought and vision for Japan’s modernisation based on research in primary sources. It outlines Ito’s life: the son of a poor farmer, he showed exceptional talent as a boy and was sent to study in Europe and the United States. He returned home convinced that Western civilisation was the only viable path for Japan. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Ito became a powerful intellectual and political force behind reforms of Japanese laws and institutions aimed to shape a modern government based on informed leadership and a knowledeable populace. Among his many achievements were the establishment of Japan’s first constitution—the Meiji Constitution of 1889, and the founding in 1900 of a new type of constitutional party, the Rikken Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional