Japan from anime to zen

An accessible compendium of the most important aspects of Japanese arts, culture and history, for quick reference or a longer, in-depth read, for actual and armchair travelers alike..

Japan on american tv

Japan on American TV explores political, economic, and cultural issues underlying depictions of Japan on U.S. television comedies and the programs they inspired. The book examines six main categories of television portrayals representing different genres and comedic forms.

Japan reborn

Tracing changing views of the “mixed blood” child, Japan Reborn reveals how notions of racial mixture and purity reshaped Japanese identity.

Japan since 1945

Concisely rendered, engagingly written, and thoughtful in its judgments, this short book is a most valuable interpretation of Japan’s remarkable history since the end of World War II. It surveys the dramatic changes in Japan’s society, politics, economy, international relations, and culture from ...

Japan's modern myths

Ideology played a momentous role in modern Japanese history. Not only did the elite of imperial Japan (1890-1945) work hard to influence the people to "yield as the grasses before the wind," but historians of modern Japan later identified these efforts as one of the underlying pathologies of Worl...

Japan, 1972

Japan, 1972 takes an early-seventies year as a vantage point for understanding how Japanese society came to terms with cultural change. Yoshikuni Igarashi examines a broad selection of popular film, television, manga, and other media, exposing the underpinnings of mass culture and investigating d...

Japanese cinema

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas, beginning with the classic directors who came to the fore in the postwar period and became legendary names...

Japanese family crests and designs

Japanese government and politics

This book is a comparative approach to Japanese politics. Grounded in a discussion of democracy’s historical development since the Meiji period, each chapter encourages readers to think critically and comparatively about political processes and their outcomes, situating Japan regionally and as a ...

Japanese literature: from murasaki to murakami

This book provides a concise introduction to the literature of Japan that traces its origins in the seventh century and explores its cultural contexts. Coverage extends to the present day with a focus on the complex twists and turns that mark Japan’s literature in the modern period.

Japanese popular culture and globalization

This book offers a concise overview of Japan’s phenomenal influence on world pop culture. Surveying Japanese forms from anime and manga to monster movies and Hello Kitty products, it is an accessible introduction to Japan’s pop creativity and its global appeal.

Japanese war criminals

Examining the moral, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding the Allied prosecution project, from the first investigations during the war to the final release of prisoners in 1958, Japanese War Criminals shows how a simple effort to punish the guilty evolved into a struggle that muddied ...

Japan’s security renaissance

In this analysis of Japan's changing military policy, Andrew L. Oros shows how a gradual awakening to new security challenges has culminated in the multifaceted "security renaissance" of the past decade. Bringing together Japanese domestic politics with the broader geopolitical landscape, he prov...

Just enough

How the mindset of traditional Japanese society can guide our own efforts to lead a green lifestyle today.

Koume’s world

Kawai Koume (1804–1889) was an accomplished poet and painter and a wife, mother, and grandmother in a lower-ranking samurai family in a provincial castle town. Through her eyes and words, Simon Partner opens a window on social, economic, and cultural life amid some of the most dramatic periods of...

Line of advantage

Line of Advantage provides a groundbreaking and comprehensive account of the new grand strategy that emerged in Japan under Abe Shinzō. Michael J. Green draws on on two decades of access to Abe and other Japanese political, military, and business leaders, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of...

Lust, commerce, and corruption

An anonymous samurai author's detailed 1816 critique of Edo society.

Manchu princess, japanese spy

A sensational, myth-busting biography of a woman who thrived and fell upon the turmoil of her era.

Marvelous menagerie

Molding japanese minds

How has the Japanese government persuaded its citizens to save substantial portions of their incomes? And to care for the elderly within the family? How did the public come to support legalized prostitution as in the national interest? What roles have women's groups played in Japan's "economic mi...

Monsters, animals, and other worlds

Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds is a collection of twenty-five medieval Japanese tales of border crossings and the fantastic, featuring demons, samurai, talking animals, amorous plants, and journeys to supernatural realms. With images from the original scroll paintings, it illuminates a rich ...

Must the sun set in the west?

How an elitist concept of democracy promoted by the American political and academic establishments constrained Japan’s political development Japan’s historic pursuit of a full membership in “the West” may finally be close to fruition—even as the value of such membership seems greatly diminished. ...

Okinawa and the u.s. military

In 1995, an Okinawan schoolgirl was brutally raped by several U.S. servicemen. The incident triggered a chain of protests by women's groups, teachers' associations, labor unions, reformist political parties, and various grassroots organizations across Okinawa prefecture. Reaction to the crime cul...

Prescribing colonization

An essential book for scholars of East Asian history, Prescribing Colonization addresses the impact of Western-influenced Japanese medicine on medical practices in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule and examines the role colonial medicine played in Japanese empire building.Taiwan was Japan’s fi...

Punishment and power in the making of modern japan

The kinds of punishment used in a society have long been considered an important criterion in judging whether a society is civilized or barbaric, advanced or backward, modern or premodern. Focusing on Japan, and the dramatic revolution in punishments that occurred after the Meiji Restoration, Dan...

Reading the tale of genji

A textual history of the reception, canonization, and popularization of Japan’s premier literary text.

Record of miraculous events in japan

Classic setsuwa tales describing Buddhism’s emergence in eighth-century Japan.

Rival civilisations

How British intellectuals of the twentieth century reckoned with the emergence of an Asian powerMost historians of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe point to the persistence of racialised and hierarchical views of non-Europeans as “uncivilised.” Yet these accounts overlook the profound inte...

Shadows of nagasaki

A critical introduction to how the Nagasaki atomic bombing has been remembered, especially in contrast to that of Hiroshima.In the decades following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the city’s residents processed their trauma and formed narratives of the destruction and reconstru...

Shintō in the history and culture of japan

This book is a concise overview of Shintō through a survey of its key concepts, related archeological finds, central mythology, significant cultural sites, political dimensions, and historical developments. Its goal is to promote an understanding of Shintō as an enduring cultural phenomenon centr...

So lovely a country will never perish

The attack on Pearl Harbor, which precipitated the Greater East Asia War and its initial triumphs, aroused pride and a host of other emotions among the Japanese people. Yet the single year in which Japanese forces occupied territory from Alaska to Indonesia was followed by three years of terrible...

Sōseki

John Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of Natsume Sōseki, the father of the modern novel in Japan. This biography elevates Sōseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contempora...

Spreading buddha's word in east asia

This volume follows the making of the Chinese Buddhist canon from the fourth century to the digital era. Approaching the subject from a historical perspective, it ties the religious, social, and textual practices of canon formation to the development of East Asian Buddhist culture.

Still life and other stories

Winner of the PEN Center USA Award for translationAward-winning author Junzo Shono weaves a stunning tapestry of everyday life in this collection of short stories.A young man, having failed his college entrance exams, becomes obsessed with a family card game. A businessman stays overnight at an i...

Strangers in the ethnic homeland

Since the late 1980s, Brazilians of Japanese descent have been "return" migrating to Japan as unskilled foreign workers. With an immigrant population currently estimated at roughly 280,000, Japanese Brazilians are now the second largest group of foreigners in Japan. Although they are of Japanese ...

Studies in intellectual history of tokugawa japan

A comprehensive study of changing political thought during the Tokugawa period, the book traces the philosophical roots of Japanese modernization. Professor Maruyama describes the role of Sorai Confucianism and Norinaga Shintoism in breaking the stagnant confines of Chu Hsi Confucianism, the unde...

Suzuki seijun and postwar japanese cinema

William Carroll offers a new account of Suzuki Seijun’s career that highlights the intersections of film theory, film production, cinephile culture, and politics in 1960s Japan. This book presents both a major reinterpretation of Suzuki’s work and a new lens on postwar Japanese film culture and i...

Taiwan under japanese colonial rule, 1895–1945

The first study of colonial Taiwan in English, this volume brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars to construct a comprehensive cultural history of Taiwan under Japanese rule. Contributors from the United States, Japan, and Taiwan explore a number of topics through a variety of theor...

The afterlife is letting go

Shortlisted for the 2026 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, Nonfiction!Chosen one of Booklist's Top Ten History Books of the Year!Winner of the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction"The Afterlife Is Letting Go is a meditative consideration of Japanese American incarceration du...

The arts of japan

This exciting new volume focuses on the arts of Japan through the lens of creativity and innovation.

The book of tea

The definitive visual edition of a classic masterpiece. The Book of Tea was originally written in English by Kakuzo Okakura in 1906. Since then, it has been recognized, together with Bushido, as one of the most important books written by Japanese authors in English in the early 20th century. The ...

The columbia anthology of japanese essays

Varying in length from paragraphs to pages, these works also provide moving descriptions of snowy landscapes, foggy London, Ueno Park’s famous cherry blossoms, and the appeal of rainy vistas, and relate the joys and troubles of everyone from desperate samurai to filial children and ailing cats.

The company and the shogun

Focuses on the Dutch East India Company’s clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty.