A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, Third Edition, paints a richly nuanced and strikingly original portrait of the last two centuries of Japanese history. It takes students from the days of the shogunate--the feudal overlordship of the Tokugawa family--through the modernizing revolution launched by midlevel samurai in the late nineteenth century; the adoption of Western hairstyles, clothing, and military organization; and the nation's first experiments with mass democracy after World War I. Author Andrew Gordon offers the finest synthesis to date of Japan's passage through militarism, World War II, the American occupation, and the subsequent economic rollercoaster. New to the Third Edition * The previous edition's final chapter has been extensively revised for the third edition. Retitled "Japan's 'Lost Decades, " it now covers the timespan from 1989 through 2008.* An entirely new final chapter examines Japan's tumultuous recent history in a global context. Beginning with the financial crisis of 2008, it takes readers up to the traumatic events of 3/11/11, and through the aftermath of this disaster. The chapter includes a color insert with maps and photographs that document the cataclysm.* More "voices" of ordinary people integrated into the narrative* Increased coverage of cultural history topics, such as anime and manga.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• v.
• 2. 1600-2000, abridged. pt.
• 1. 1600 to
• 1868. pt.
• 2. 1868 to 2000

For almost fifty years, Sources of Japanese Tradition has been the single most valuable collection of English-language readings on Japan. Unrivalled in its wide selection of source materials on history, society, politics, education, philosophy, and religion, the two-volume textbook is a crucial resource for students, scholars, and readers seeking an introduction to Japanese civilization. Originally published in a single hardcover book, Volume 2 is now available as an abridged, two-part paperback. Part 1 covers the Tokugawa period to 1868, including texts that address the spread of neo-Confucianism and Buddhism and the initial encounters of Japan and the West. Part 2 begins with the Meiji period and ends at the new millennium, shedding light on such major movements as the Enlightenment, constitutionalism, nationalism, socialism, and feminism, and the impact of the postwar occupation. Commentary by major scholars and comprehensive bibliographies and indexes are included.Together, these readings map out the development of modern Japanese civilization and illuminate the thought and teachings of its intellectual, political, and religious leaders.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contains 2 works published separately in Japan: Andaguraundo, and, Yakusoku sareta basho de.

Monday, 20 March 1995. It is a clear spring morning. You get up at the normal time, wash, dress, breakfast, and head for the subway. You board the train, crowded as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. It promises to be a run-of-the-mill day. You don't notice, but as he is about to leave the carriage a man drops a plastic bag to the floor and punctures it with the sharpened tip of his umbrella, releasing an invisible cloud of deadly nerve gas. On other trains at the same time four accomplices, all members of a doomsday cult, are doing the same...The Tokyo Gas Attack left twelve people dead and over thousands injured; many suffering from after-effects such as blindness, memory loss and paralysis as a consequence of inhaling sarin gas. Japan's leading novelist, Haruki Murakami, both horrified and fascinated by this apparently senseless act, has interviewed as many of the victims as were willing to talk to him in order to establish precisely what happened on the Tokyo subway that day. In Underground the survivors recount their thoughts and feelings at the time, marvel at the slow response of the emergency services, and reveal how the attack has changed their view of society. We are left with a sense not only of the nightmarish quality of the assault, but also of something amiss in Tokyo itself, perhaps in modern city life everywhere. In the second half of the book, Murakami interviews members of the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) cult, in the hope that they might be able to explain how their guru, Shoko Asahara, instilled such devotion in his followers and why he resorted to terrorism.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A history of Japan, this work draws on a range of Japanese sources to offer an analysis of how shattering defeat in World War II, followed by over six years of military occupation by the USA, affected every level of Japanese society - in ways that neither the victor nor the vanquished could anticipate. Here is the history of an extraordinary moment in the history of Japanese culture, when new values warred with old, and when early ideals of "peace and democracy" were soon challenged by the "reverse course" decision to incorporate Japan into the Cold War Pax Americana. The work chronicles not only the material and psychological impact of utter defeat but also the early emergence of dynamic countercultures that gave primacy to the private as opposed to public spheres - in short, a liberation from totalitarian wartime control. John Dower shows how the tangled legacies of this intense, turbulent and unprecedented interplay of conqueror and conquered, West and East, wrought the utterly foreign and strangely familiar Japan of today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)