A number of general histories of modem Japan have been published, but the authors prefer W. G. Beasley, The Modern History of Japan (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963). Beasley’s chapters on the nineteenth century are particularly good. The large second volume of A History of East Asian Civilization written by John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig, entitled East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965), gives the best overall coverage of modem Japan’s history. Of more specialized works, apart from those listed below, three need special mention as outstandingly good: George Akita, Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 786S-7900 (Cambridge [Mass.], Harvard University Press, 1967);
William W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change 1868-1938 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1954); and the six-volume series of articles under the general title of Studies in the Modernization of Japan published by Princeton University Press, with volumes edited by R. P. Dore, Marius B. Jansen, William W. Lockwood, James Morley, Donald H. Shively, and Robert E. Ward. Of seminal value is an article on landlords’ sons and the business elite by the eminent T. C. Smith in Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 9, no. 1, part 2 (1960). Last but by no means least, perhaps the best short overview of modem Japan is the chapter (entitled “The Meiji Revolution and its sequel”) written by Professor Y. Toriumi in Arnold Toynbee (editor). Half the World: The History and Culture of China and Japan (London, Thames and Hudson, 1973).
Other works cited or referred to:
Anderson, Joseph L., and Donald Richie. The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1959.
Beckmann, George M. The Making of the Meiji Constitution: The Oligarchs and the Constitutional Development of Japan, 18681891, Lawrence, University of Kansas Press, 1957.
Berger, Gordon Mark. Parties out of Power in Japan, 1931-1941, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977.
Butow, Robert J. C. Japan’s Decision to Surrender, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1954.
Caiger, John. “The Aims and Content of School Courses in Japanese History, 1872-1945,” in E. Skrzypczak (editor), Japan’s Modem Century, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1968.
_. “lenaga Saburo and the First Postwar Japanese History Textbook,” III, 1, 1969.
Cohen, Jerome B. Japan’s Economy in War and Reconstruction, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1949.
Crowley, James B. Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy 1930-1938 Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1966.
Dore, R. R “Agricultural Improvement in Japan: 1870-1900,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 9, no. 1, part 2(1960).
_. Land Reform in Japan, London, Oxford University
Press, 1959.
Fraser, Andrew, R. H.P Mason, and Philip Mitchell. Japan's Early Parliaments, 1890-1905, London, Routledge, 1994.
Hall, John Whitney. “A Monarch for Modern Japan” in Robert E. Ward (editor). Political Development In Modern Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968.
Hall, Robert King (editor). Kokutai no Hongi—Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1949.
Ike, Nobutaka. Japan’s Decision for War—Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1967.
Ito, Hirobumi. Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, Tokyo, Chuo Daigaku, 1931, (third edition).
Komiya, Toyotaka. Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era (translated by Edward G. Seidensticker and Donald Keene), Tokyo, Obunsha, 1956.
Lone, Stewart. Japan’s First Modern War, London, Macmillan, 1994.
McLaren, W. W “Japanese Government Documents,” The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 42, (1914).
Maki, John M. Conflict and Tension in the Far East—Key Documents 1894-1960, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1961.
Mason, R. H. P. Japan’s First General Election, 1890, Cambridge, Faculty Board of Oriental Studies and Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Morley, James William. The Japanese Thrust into Siberia 1918, New York, Columbia University Press, 1957.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. The Technological Transformation of Japan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Okada, Seizo. Lost Troops—an unpublished translation by Seiichi Shiojiri, Canberra, Australian National War Memorial Library.
Pittau, Joseph. Political Thought in Early Meiji Japan 1868-1889, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1967.
Poole, Otis Manchester. The Death of Old Yokohama in the Great Japanese Earthquake of September 1, 1923, London, Allen and Unwin, 1968.
Rosovsky, Henry. “Rumbles in the Ricefields: Professor Nakamura vs. the Official Statistics,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 27, no. 2 (1968).
Sansom, George. The Western World and Japan, London, The Cresset Press, 1950.
Smith, Thomas C. Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868-1880, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1955.
Steele, M. William. “Integration and Participation in Meiji Politics; Japan’s Political Modernization Reconsidered,” Asian Cultural Studies, no. 14 (1984), published by International Christian University, Tokyo.
Toriumi Y. “The Manhood Suffrage Question in Japan after the FirstWorldWar,” Papers on Ear Eastern History, no. 11 (1975).
Totten, George O. Democracy in Prewar Japan—Groundwork or Fagade?, Lexington (Mass)., D. C. Heath and Company, 1965.
Tsuji, Masanobu. Singapore—The Japanese Version (translated by M. E. Lake), Sydney, Ure Smith, 1960.
Ward, Robert E., and Dankwart A. Rustow (editors). Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1964.
Postscript
Regular reading of such journals as The Economist and The Japan Quarterly will allow those interested to keep in touch with Japan, especially in its contemporary aspects. The English-language press in Japan, dailies and weeklies, serves the same purpose in a more detailed fashion.
World History
