The Modern History of Japan

Many Western visitors to Japan have written books about their experiences, sometimes good ones. Moreover, Western scholars, especially in the last fifteen years or so, have devoted a good deal of attention to the country's modern development. There is therefore a considerable literature which one might cite in a bibliography of Japan's modern history; and although I have tried to mention all works of outstanding importance in the lists which follow, it must be emphasized at the outset that the selection as a whole reflects a degree of personal taste and prejudice.

Those readers who would like to acquire a knowledge of Japanese history before the nineteenth century will find the best accounts in G. B. Sansom, Japan. A short cultural history (rev. ed., London, 1952) and the chapters on Japan in E. O. Reischauer and J. K. Fairbank, East Asia: the great tradition ( Boston, Mass., 1960).

The standard account of Japan's modern history is H. Borton , Japan's modern century ( New York, 1955). C. Yanaga, Japan since Perry ( New York, 1949) is more detailed, but more appropriate for reference than for general reading, while G. B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan ( New York, 1950) is a brilliant and readable study of cultural relations between Japan and the West from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Also important for the nineteenth century is E. H. Norman , Japan's emergence as a modern state ( New York, 1940). Two good political histories, one emphasizing parties and institutions, the other nationalism, are R. A. Scalapino, Democracy and the party movement in prewar Japan ( Berkeley, 1953) and D. M. Brown, Nationalism in Japan: an introductory historical analysis ( Berkeley, 1955). Economic history is treated more or less chronologically in G. C. Allen, A short economic history of modern Japan 1867-1937 (2nd rev. ed., with a supplementary

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