The Modern History of Japan by William Gerald Beasley


The Modern History of Japan
Title : The Modern History of Japan
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0312539991
ISBN-10 : 9780312539993
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 358
Publication : First published January 1, 1963

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The Modern History of Japan Reviews

  • Laurent De Serres Berard

    Amazingly well written book, nuanced and with demonstrated objectivity. The fact that the version i read was from 1967, and so could almost predict the amazing rise of Japan in the 80s, make it even more an amazing read. The description of complex social change is reduced easily by the author to its main components easily understood. It is a wonderful simplification to kept in mind in order to understand Japan's modernization, without loosing too much of nuances and limitations of the phenomenon described. The author is gracefully objective, and gained my full confidence when he warn the reader of oversimplification and of too much trust in his writing, such as in this passage :

    "Such a situation makes it difficult for the historian, as it did for contemporaries, to allocate responsibility for decisions, a circumstance that needs to be borne in mind when reading the narrative which follows"

    What surprise me most was the advanced almost democratic institutions that japan had already achieved before WW2, making it not just an american importation, but modern institutions witg which the country was already familiar. The complex socio economical dynamics behind the balance required to reach those modern institutions, that then fell into militaristic rule, still was the blueprint of japan incredible advances in the 80s.

  • Nicola

    Saggio sulla storia del Giappone dall'epoca Tokugawa agli anni Sessanta del Novecento. Nonostante sia abbastanza datata come edizione, ho trovato molti spunti interessanti per ulteriori approfondimenti, specialmente per la parte riguardante l'occupazione americana del dopoguerra.
    Il capitolo dedicato al secondo conflitto mondiale è alquanto sintetico, se si cerca un'analisi approfondita su questo argomento consiglio di cercare altri testi.

  • lauwisteria

    L'autore è obiettivo. E' importantissimo sottolinearlo perché è raro trovare un testo così autorevole e, seppur datato, ben documentato e con un'assoluta MA sorprendente neutralità. Il fatto che l'edizione che ho letto/studiato fosse del 1963, tradotto e pubblicato in Italia nel '68, e quindi potesse quasi prevedere l'incredibile ascesa economica del Giappone negli anni '80, lo rende una lettura ancora più sorprendente. La descrizione del complesso mutamento sociale viene facilmente ridotta dall'autore alle sue componenti principali facilmente comprensibili.

  • Ulises

    I agree. It is rather dense.