Customer Reviews

History of Japan

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I first became interested in the history of Japan, this is the first book that I read. At the time, I gave this book five stars. As I have read more about Japan though this book falls a little bit for the things it leaves out and the fact that it focuses too much attention to relatively obscure cultural phenomena without expending equal energy to political and military development. I would recommend this book for a good start to learning about Japan and a quicker read than Sansom's histories or the Oxford histories.

This book is a great introduction to the history of Japan, as the liner on the back of the books says. It suffers a little from the obvious problem of trying to squeeze two thousand years of civilisation into 370 pages, and as such is basically a fleshed out timeline. There is little elaboration on events and presents the reader with an endless string of historical characters, places and dates. However, there is a good focus on the development of the arts in each period. It would seem the authors have a great liking for Japanese verse, so the seemingly often appearance of poetry excerpts can get a little annoying if one is reading it purely for historical information. The book also glosses over recent Japanese history, from about the beginning of the occupation by American forces. As a turbulent time, there would be a lot to write about but if you're interested in that, try John Dower's "Embracing defeat" or a number of other books on Japan's modern history. If you are planning on making a visit to Japan this may be a good book to read so that you know when "that castle" or "this temple" was built, by whom and why.

This book makes an excellent introduction to Japanese history, as it covers the whole spectrum of history and does not focus in on one part too much. About two thirds of the chapters cover political and general history, and the other third look at cultural and religious developments. My only problems are that it doesn't seem to go in-depth in Buddhism enough and it seems to move past the civil war in the 16th century too quickly. It is especially good at developing the ideas of Shiki land rights and how Buddhism developed in Japan. A good general history or introduction to Japanese history.

The History Of Japan by R. H. P. Mason and J. G. Caiger is a very small yet very complete book of Japanese history and culture, from 10,000 BC up to the 1950s. Maps, photos, quotes and a small bibliography add delight and swift understanding to a very complex subject. Perfect gift for a person just showing interest in Japanese or Asian history. Deals with the major points, the changing twists and turns, in Japan during its history. It also deals with the culture, the religions, the development of city life, the arts, the political and industrial changes with just the right amount of information.

This book is really dense, but I suppose that's because it's a book on the history of a very ancient country. It reads like a very boring old-fashioned book, but it is very rich in detail, going back thousands of years all the way to nearly the present. I suppose it's good if you have a lot of spare time and are REALLY interested in the subject.

This is practically an example of how not to write a history book. To begin with, it concentrates on hight political trends and "high" culture while totally ignoring everything else. In this book you won't find what average Japanese peasant ate, wore, listened and prayed to. You also won't find how the armies fought, how things were made and when they were invented. But you will be subjected to long and boring paragraphs that try to analyze relationships between various ruling factions. Don't get me wrong, the later part is also important but it is not all that history is about. To the obvious objection that choice of content has to do with book size I can only answer: look at all the poetry and literary analysis that the authors did find the space for.
As the book gets into the 20th century it gets worse. We are subjected to long list of ever changing prime ministers (reminiscent of Biblical "begats") but the Rape of Nanking gets one sentence. Nothing is told about atrocities of Japanese occupation and the authors even manage to find some positive aspects about it. But of course authors find bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unjustifiable (in one sentence too). And so on in the same direction. I don't know exactly (but suspect) what kind of political agenda made authors to write all this but honest history it is not. After reading this book I sort of started to understand why the Chinese were so enraged about Japanese history book revisions.