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Required reading from the past couple of years?
Topic Started: Mar 15 2015, 08:09 PM (3,712 Views)
AngusH
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Castle Guard
It was Japanese history that really kick started my love of history in general, and in the years since I've posted here I've been busy reading a ton of history from a ton of different eras. Has there been anything major released (in English) the past 5 years or so that I've missed?
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Tatsunoshi
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Miko no Kami

Royall Tyler's translation of the Heike Monogatari, along with his "Before Heike and After: Hogen, Heiji, Jyokuki". Also "The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga". "The East Asian War 1592-1598". "Japan Emerging". "Currents in Medieval Japanese History". "Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan". "Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan's Premodern Capital".
Edited by Tatsunoshi, Mar 15 2015, 09:04 PM.
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Toranosuke
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Tosa no kami
Easily one of my top "must-read" recommendations:
*Amino Yoshihiko & Alan Christy (trans.) - Rethinking Japanese History (2012)

Other excellent stuff from recent years:
*Robert Hellyer - Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1640-1868 (2010)
*Luke Roberts - Performing the Great Peace (2012)
*Anne-Elise Llewallen - Beyond Ainu Studies (2013)
*Ethan Segal - Coins, Trade, and the State: Economic Growth in Early Medieval Japan (2011)
*Elizabeth Lillehoj - Art and Palace Politics in Early Modern Japan (2011)
*Anne Allison - Precarious Japan (2013)
*Amy Stanley - Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (2012)
*Timon Screech - Obtaining Images (2012)
上り口説 Nubui Kuduchi – Musings on the arts of Japan and beyond
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ltdomer98
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Daijo Daijin

I'll second the translation of Amino that Toranosuke mentioned. Also Japan Emerging--it's got it's issues, but it's a book I'd use as a text in an undergraduate class.

I'd also throw in David Spafford's A Sense of Place: The Political Landscape in Late Medieval Japan (2013) and Oleg Benesch's Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan(2014).

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Rekishi no Tabi
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Ôoku no Kami

If you are interested in eco-sustainability and how things were built in the Edo period, I'd recommend Just Enough by Azby Brown.

Also of interest, check out:
* Ooku: The Secret World of the Shogun’s Women by Cecilia Segawa Seigle and Linda H. Chance- It's a good read
* Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan by Shimoda Hiraku (looks at Aizu in Meiji thru Showa and into Heisei Japan)
* Samurai Revolution by Romulus Hillsborough- Hilly is still not my favorite author and I have some important quibbles with some things in the book, but it is a worthwhile read about the history of the Bakumatsu
* War and State Building in Medieval Japan by John Ferejohn (Editor), Frances Rosenbluth (Editor). Some good essays in this one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rekishinotabi/
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owari no utsuke
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Izu no kami
I would also add Carol Richmond Tsang's War and Faith Ikko Ikki in the Late Muromachi Japan (2007). The chapter on Ieyasu is icing on the cake.
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JapanThis
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Artisan
I'll second what Rekishi no Tabi said about Ōoku: The Secret World of the Shogun’s Women by Cecilia Segawa Seigle and Linda H. Chance and Samurai Revolution by Romulus Hillsborough (the latter being a total surprise).
Japan This! - A Blog About Edo-Tōkyō
Guided Tours For Japanese History Nerds. Yes, You Heard That Right!
JapanThis! on Twitter
JapanThis! on Flickr
#TeamIenari
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Toranosuke
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Tosa no kami
Thanks for initiating this, Angus! This is really growing into a great list of books for me to be aware of also :)
上り口説 Nubui Kuduchi – Musings on the arts of Japan and beyond
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HJT
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Vagrant
There's already been some great books recommended here. I'll second Rethinking Japanese History, War and Faith and War and State Building. All really good reads. A few that I would add (Some are just a bit older than 5 years...):

Japan To 1600: A Social and Economic History by William Wayne Farris
Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo and the Culture of Early Modern Japan by Constantine Vaporis
The First Samurai: The Life and Legend of the Warrior Rebel Taira Masakado by Karl Friday
Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook edited by James Heisig, Thomas Kasulis and John Maraldo (Not really a history book per se, but good reference material.)
Shingen The Conqueror by Terje Solum (Especially if you have the previous 4 books in the series).
Both Daimyo of 1867 and Shogun & Daimyo by Tadashi Ehara (Good reference book to have. Especially if the Papinot dictionary that you own is very old and faded.)
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Wicked L
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Oki no kami
The Ooku book looks really interesting, wish the price would come down though .
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iceman_085
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Vagrant
Thanks for starting with this thread. I hope it is ok to use this thread to ask for an advice. I am looking for some good books about the Bakumatsu exept the allready mentioned Samurai Revolution. According to google there quite a lot books out there, but as newbie I don't know how discern the good books from the bad ones. I would be pleased to hear what you guys and gals have to saw about that topic.


Edit Sorry my fault. :$ :$ I have just seen that there is already a book thread in the Bakuamatsu Section auf the forum. Can I ask the mods to delete these two posts?
Edited by iceman_085, Mar 17 2015, 03:11 AM.
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Rekishi no Tabi
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Ôoku no Kami

Iceman- check out the Bakumatsu section-- a lot more books have been added to the list. As for what is good and bad, a lot of that is relative. If you want a specific opinion, just ask. ;)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rekishinotabi/
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kitsuno
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The Shogun

ltdomer98
Mar 16 2015, 03:57 AM


I'd also throw in David Spafford's A Sense of Place: The Political Landscape in Late Medieval Japan (2013)




This book can also be voted for the ICAS book prize - My guess is voting for it would get it some press and promote that type of publication, at least that was how this prize has been explained in the past:

http://list.iias.asia/lists/lt.php?id=cE9cUwFKA1ABGgcFBQZQ

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ltdomer98
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kitsuno
Mar 26 2015, 05:31 AM
ltdomer98
Mar 16 2015, 03:57 AM


I'd also throw in David Spafford's A Sense of Place: The Political Landscape in Late Medieval Japan (2013)




This book can also be voted for the ICAS book prize - My guess is voting for it would get it some press and promote that type of publication, at least that was how this prize has been explained in the past:

http://list.iias.asia/lists/lt.php?id=cE9cUwFKA1ABGgcFBQZQ

I voted for it, but a Chinese history book will have the ballot box stuffed yet again.
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kitsuno
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The Shogun

ltdomer98
Mar 26 2015, 05:48 AM
kitsuno
Mar 26 2015, 05:31 AM
I voted for it, but a Chinese history book will have the ballot box stuffed yet again.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But I guess second place has to matter at least a little bit...
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Toranosuke
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Tosa no kami
That book on Tibetan Medicine seems to be off to an amazing lead, with 20-something percent of the votes cast thus far; only one other book has more than 5%.

But, out of the Japan books, with sympathies to pre-modern, I wouldn't be surprised if Anne Allison's "Precarious Japan" gets a lot of votes...
上り口説 Nubui Kuduchi – Musings on the arts of Japan and beyond
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kitsuno
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The Shogun

My own preference is that any book related to pre-modern Japan gets it. With all due respect to ballot box stuffers, I'm tired of Chinese nationalist spam.
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ltdomer98
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Daijo Daijin

Toranosuke
Mar 26 2015, 10:35 AM
That book on Tibetan Medicine seems to be off to an amazing lead, with 20-something percent of the votes cast thus far; only one other book has more than 5%.

But, out of the Japan books, with sympathies to pre-modern, I wouldn't be surprised if Anne Allison's "Precarious Japan" gets a lot of votes...
Yes, people like books that talk about how horrible everything is and how it's really the end of the world. Especially in academia, and especially when they can blame it on a conservative government. I'm not an Abe fan per se, but it really bothers me to see academics be so alarmist. From the blurbs, you'd think everyone in Japan is about to off themselves because the whole concept of Japan is "hopeless." Certainly there are issues, and 3/11 was/still is a crisis, but I'd prefer to see some writing about how WELL that was handled by the Japanese as a whole (not TEPCO, ha), relative to the impact it would have had elsewhere. Reading the blurb on the Duke website, I'm depressed and want to jump in front of a Marunouchi-sen subway car. Of course, her most famous book was from research when Japan was at it's economic high point, so perhaps she's just comparing then to now.

I'll stop there, but I'm not an Anne Allison fan, and it really bothers me that STILL the impression of the mizu shobai in academia is set by her book Nightwork from the 1980s. It's 30 years later, and yet Western academia's perceptions are still set by high-end Ginza clubs during the heydays of Japan's economy, written by someone with a particular slant. Groundbreaking anthropology for the time, but I have real disagreements with the picture it paints of that world.
Edited by ltdomer98, Mar 26 2015, 12:49 PM.
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Toranosuke
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Tosa no kami
And, in the end, a book on gender and shamanism in Mongolia has won the prize. Sorry, Japan.

http://asiancultureandstyle.tumblr.com/post/115930732530/ninewhitebanners-the-international-convention
上り口説 Nubui Kuduchi – Musings on the arts of Japan and beyond
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faust
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Vagrant
Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan by Shimoda Hiraku would also be my recommendation ^o). I had low expectations of it but really enjoyed reading it after all.
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