Japan: A Modern History

By James L. McClain

Book Overview

In the tradition of Jonathan Spence's "The Search for Modern China" comes an authoritative, comprehensive, up-to-date modern history of Japan seasoned with samplings of Japanese culture. 70... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393041565
• ISBN13: 9780393041569
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Superb recount of Japan

McClain offers a holistic approach to Japanese history. In this book he explains how Japan got to where it is today by going through the various historical periods. For recent Japanese history, he concentrates on the social aspects as well as the political and economic ones. Readers gain a thorough understanding of Japan with this book.

The best history of modern Japan (1603 forward)...

McClain has fashioned a highly detailed, sophisticated, and complex history of Japan from 1603 to the present. The historiography is superb (he obviously is totally bilingual and is fluent in Japanese sources). The history is both descriptive (chronological, social, political, economic, family/personal) as well as analytic (how social structure affected the rise of industrial society, for example). The overall effect is to make Japanese history clear and comprehensible. The people of Japan stand out in distinct relief. I was puzzled that the Boston Globe reviewer was much cooler toward this book than I think most readers are or will be. McClain's history will stand the test of time.

Comprehensive history since the 17th century.

If you are looking for an excellent resource on the history of Japan in the past 4 centuries, I recommend this book highly. It does an excellent job in tracing the tortuous path that wove from Japan's feudal fiefdom society to the current modern parliamentary democracy. In addition to the governmental and military matters that are generally covered, there is notable space dedicated to the arts and the contributions of women, peasants and others not normally found in history books. The maps and illustrations are adequate, and do help to support the text. Highly Recommended.

A Synthetic Review of Japanese History...

The last few years have seen a spate of new histories covering the last three hundred years of Japanese history. From Herbert Bix's and John Dower's Pulitizer Prize-winning looks at Japan in the Twentieth Century to Marius Jansen and now James McClain's examinations of post-Sengoku ('Warring States') societal evolution, Japanese history is again attracting the attention of mainstream American readers.McClain's new book takes us from Tokugawa Ieyasu's country-uniting victory at Sekigahara in 1600 (with a brief stop to quickly explain the millennium of history leading up to the battle) to Yoshiro Mori's cabinet of 2000-2001. It covers political history, governmental development, economic evolution, societal change, educational systems and intellectual debates through this entire span of time giving a very synthetic view of Japanese history. If anything, McClain's book weighs in a bit more heavily on the economic and governmental development side of the equation, leaving political history to books that have covered it many times before. He shows all of modern Japanese history (defined as 1600 AD to the present) as dynamic, evolving and never quite fully under the control of any one person or group. A view that has gained a great deal of credence in modern years, it makes this history of Japan very timely.Unsurprisingly, the past century of Japanese history takes up the lion's share of the book and he shows the tragic mistakes of the century in much the same way he showcases the triumphs. If any one thesis appears in his book, it is that Japan continues to evolve, hangs on to the past and appears to be at the cusp of a new societal evolution as the century ticks over. The first two are hardly news, and while the third may be a little controversial in some circles, these views merit reiteration in a historical retelling.On the whole, McClain's book makes for a very necessary addition to the available reference works on Japanese history, especially given the economic and societal bent to his writing. His sources are impeccable and his work is conservative enough to stand as a good history while being just radical enough to push a few boundaries of intellectual thought about Japan. It doesn't hurt that the work is quite readable as well. If I ever teach a course on Japanese history, this book will serve as the core historical text.