From the prism of modern Japan, the latter nineteenth-century “belle epoque” is much more than an era of cultural flowering or symbol of an efflorescent West. Rather, it is a time of both significant strife and global cultural production. Just a decade after its founding, the modern Japanese state plunged into civil war (the Satsuma “Rebellion”). And while it emerged victorious in both the Sino- (1894-5) and Russo-Japanese (1904-5) Wars, Japan would continue to pay for the enormous human and financial costs of both conflicts. At the same time, Japanese power lured Imperial Britain into its first alliance in decades. And the international circulation of Japanese woodblock prints inspired a wave of new artistic movements, including modern architecture, Impressionism, the Vienna Secession, and Art Nouveau. The belle epoque was an era of culture and conflict spurred by key cultural and geopolitical movements across the globe.