A History of Japan (Blackwell History of the World) [Paperback]

Conrad Totman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1405123591 | ISBN-13: 978-1405123594 | Publication Date: January 24, 2005 | Edition: 2

This is an updated edition of Conrad Totman’s authoritative history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day.

The first edition was widely praised for combining sophistication and accessibility.

Covers a wide range of subjects, including geology, climate, agriculture, government and politics, culture, literature, media, foreign relations, imperialism, and industrialism.

Updated to include an epilogue on Japan today and tomorrow.

Now includes more on women in history and more on international relations.

Bibliographical listings have been updated and enlarged.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A History of Japan is a highly recommended, informative, scholarly, comprehensive, and 'reader friendly' introduction and historical survey that will be much appreciated by students of Japanese history and culture, and has a wealth of material for the non-specialist general reader seeking to understand the Japan of antiquity as well as a contemporary and influential society." The Midwest Book Review

"Not until Conrad Totman's A History of Japan has there been such a sophisticated and detailed record of Japan's past, one that combines and critiques the standard perspectives while adding a new vision all its own. In a word, this is the best single-volume examination of Japan's history available .. A History of Japan is a masterpiece." Monumenta Nipponica

"A clear and concise overview of the whole of Japanese history." History

"Students and the ... general reader ... will profit from engagement with this book." English Historical Review

"A History of Japan is one of the most perceptive and illuminating studies of Japan's history to have appeared in English in recent decades, and is likely to be widely used by teachers, students and researchers." Times Higher Education Supplement

"Totman's work reflects its author's erudition, expansive vision, and humanism. It will suit the needs of instructors and many general readers perfectly." David Howell, Princeton University, for the Journal of Japanese Studies --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Book Description

This single-volume history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day was widely praised on publication for combining sophistication and accessibility. It conceptualizes the country's history in terms of four major ages: the age of foragers, dispersed agriculturalists, intensive agriculture, and industrialism. Within this framework, it traces the changing patterns of human-environment relations and examines their interplay with the more familiar realms of political, socioeconomic, and cultural history. The book treats the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in considerable detail and gives fullest coverage to the twentieth century, when this island nation became a major player on the stage of world history. In its survey of this recent history, it explores diplomatic and domestic political affairs; economic development and change; class, gender, and ethnicity; ideology and political punditry; cultural production in the arts; letters, music, and popular entertainment; and the environmental ramifications of this human activity. For the second edition, an epilogue has been added looking at Japan today and tomorrow, paying special attention to environmental and diplomatic issues.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition (January 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405123591
• ISBN-13: 978-1405123594
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.6 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #928,281 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and accessible, September 2, 2006

By 

David Schaich "David Schaich" (Boulder, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A History of Japan (Blackwell History of the World) (Paperback)

I had the good fortune to use (the first edition of) Conrad Totman's "History of Japan" in a series of introductory Japanese history courses for which I also read large parts of the two works with which it is often compared by other reviewers: George Sansom's three-volume history and the encyclopedic Cambridge history. This let me compare all three works and identify the strengths that each has relative to the others. Although I read the first edition, few major changes seem to have been made in the second edition, the main one being an expansion of the epilogue to discuss pressures associated with the war on terror and invasion of Iraq.

As a one-volume work, Totman's history can't hope to include as much detail as the other two multi-volume histories. However, it nevertheless manages to present a comprehensive and very accessible history of Japan from prehistoric times to the twenty-first century. Unlike the Cambridge history, it is actually affordable, and unlike Sansom's work it includes events following the Meiji Restoration. Totman also spends considerably more time exploring Japanese society and economy than does Sansom, who focuses mainly on political, military and high-cultural affairs.

Totman's main conceit is taking an 'ecological' approach to Japanese history that governs the book's structure even if it doesn't dominate the narrative as a whole. He divides Japanese history into four rough and somewhat overlapping periods, based on the dominant means of production: pre-agriculture, dispersed agriculture, intensive agriculture, and industrial. Each of these periods, he argues, exhibited an early high-growth phase when the spread of new techniques and technologies led to rapid increases in production and population, followed by longer periods of stasis. As a result of this approach, for instance, Totman considers the Meiji Restoration a less crucial transition than the process of industrialization that followed it later in the nineteenth century.

Totman's interpretation is plausible, and I appreciated how he uses it to provide structure to his account, without forcing all aspects of Japanese history to fit into some overarching model. His writing was also quite accessible, and often a pleasure to read. The supplemental tables, glossary, index, annotated bibliography and limited notes were also helpful. Sansom and the Cambridge history may make more complete references, but of the three I found Totman's "History of Japan" the most interesting, accessible and enjoyable to read.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding history., June 6, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A History of Japan (Blackwell History of the World) (Paperback)

Conrad Totman's A History Of Japan conceptualizes four major "ages" grounded in the material resources that sustained Japanese society: the age of foragers, dispersed agriculturalists, intensive agriculture, and industrialism. Totman beings with Stone Age society in Japan, and then moves through developments in agriculture, state-building, the blossoming of classical arts and letters, socioeconomic growth and change, domestic and diplomatic politics, social issues of class, gender and ethnicity, cultural production and the environmental effects of agricultural activity. A History Of Japan provides detailed coverage of the twentieth century when Japan grew into a much larger society and its role on the international science became militarily, economically, and culturally influential. A History Of Japan is a highly recommended, informative, scholarly, comprehensive, and "reader friendly" introduction and historical survey that will be much appreciated by students of Japanese history and culture, and has a wealth of material for the non-specialist general reader seeking to understand the Japan of antiquity as well as a contemporary and influential society.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A failed attempt, December 22, 2005

By 

Robert Ashton (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A History of Japan (Blackwell History of the World) (Paperback)

The basic concept of this book of focusing less on the key people and events of history and more on the environmental, social and cultural impacts is not new and could have produced an interesting and insightful analysis of a country that is still a mystery to most Westerners. However, Totman fails to achieve this. His writing style can be tedious and he seems intent in showing off his impressive vocabulary - he certainly must get the prize for the most use of the word "adumbrate" in a book.

Ironically, therein lies the problem. He sketches over some complex issues,cultural themes and whole periods of history that without an existing deep knowledge of Japanese history and society leaves this reader, at least, more confused than enlightened. His approach of laying a lot of emphasis on the geographic and environmental influences, again, could have been very interesting but it finally degenerates into a rant about the war in Iraq and how destructive and corrupt the Industrialized world is. Rather than a diatribe against the Bush administration, it would have been useful to see an analysis of the factors that have caused the Japanese economy to stagnate compared to Europe and particularly the U.S.

In the end this book really does not give either a helpful overview of the history of Japan nor any insight into its future.