Haha I guess it isn&#x27;t a surprise when some Americans make true-Scotsman claims like this. They shouldn&#x27;t be jealous of other nations&#x27; extensive histories, rather they should enjoy those histories.<p>When the shogunate emerged in Japan to govern in place of the abdicating, distracted Heian imperial court, USA was populated by various neolithic tribes. Akihito is a direct descendant of the emperors who ruled then, and speaks the same language in his court that they did. I haven&#x27;t heard much pre-Columbian Algonquin spoken in the White House.<p>Civil wars don&#x27;t switch to a different &quot;civilization&quot;. (The one in USA didn&#x27;t, did it?) Japan&#x27;s remarkable post-WWII recovery from the devastation of war and poor governance in the 1940s to economic success in the 1960s-80s (which IMHO is more impressive than the Meiji restoration to which you refer) is compared by Japanese themselves to earlier recoveries such as that during the early Edo period. The culture, language, and society that exists in Japan today descends directly from those that accomplished previous impressive transitions.