Primary Sources: Japan

Harima Fudoki , dated to 714CE, is one of Japan’s earliest extant written records. It is a rich account of the people, places, natural resources and stories in the Harima region of western Japan. Produced by the government as a tool for Japan’s early state formation, Harima Fudoki includes important myths of places and gods from a different perspective to the contemporaneous ‘national’ chronicles. This document is an essential primary source for all who are interested in ancient Japan. In this new critical edition, Palmer draws upon recent research into the archaeology, history, orality and literature of ancient Japan to reinterpret this hitherto little-known document. Palmer’s insightful commentary contextualizes the Harima tales for the first time in English.

This is an account of the growth and uses of Western learning in Japan from 1720 to 1830. These are the dates of the beginning of official interest in Western learning and of the expulsion of Siebold from the country, the first stage of a crisis that could be resolved only by the opening of the country of the West. The century and more included by the two dates was a most important period in Japanese history, when intellectuals, rebelling at the isolation of their country, desperately sought knowledge from abroad. The amazing energy and enthusiasm of men like Honda Toshiaki made possible the spectacular changes in Japan, which are all too often credited to the arrival of Commodore Perry.

Included are portions of Honda Toshiaki's works:
Tales of the West
Secret Plan of Government
and others

We have volume one only. Other volumes may be ordered through interlibrary loan.

Employing a wide range of primary source materials, Modern Japan: A History in Documents provides a colorful narrative of Japan's development since 1600. A variety of diary entries, letters, legal documents, and poems brings to life the early modern years, when Japan largely shut itself off from the outside world.

The Japanese empire lasted from 1869-1945. Japan controlled a vast area of Asia and numerous archipelagos in the Pacific Ocean. The massive extraction of resources and extensive cultural assimilation policies radically impacted the lives of millions of Asians and Micronesians, and the political, economic, and cultural ramifications of this era are still felt today.

A thousand years ago, a young Japanese girl embarked on a journey from the wild East Country to the capital. She began a diary that she would continue to write for the next forty years and compile later in life, bringing lasting prestige to her family.

Volume 1: Earliest times to 1600
Volume 2: 1600 - 2000
Volume 1:
Japanese Dynasties - Early Shinto - Prince Shotolu - Chinese Thought in Japan - Nara Buddhism - Mahayana Univeralism - Spread of Buddhism - Way of the Warrior - Zen Buddhism - Shinto in Medieval Japan - Women's Education
Volume 2:
Ieyasu & Tokugawa Shogunate - Confucianism - Encounter with West - Confucian Revisionists - Haiku - Dutch Learning - 18th Century - Wa of the Warior II - National Learning Schools - Buddhism - Restoration - Seclusion v. Restoration - Japan, Asia & The West - Various sections on socialism, women, World War I & II, Post-War Japan

2 Volumes

Volume 1: through 1500s
Volume 2: 1500s - present

Voices of Early Modern Japan offers an accessible and well-balanced view of an extraordinary period in Japanese history, ranging from the unification of the warring states under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the early seventeenth century through the overthrow of the shogunate just prior to the opening of Japan by the West in the mid-nineteenth century.

Contains documents in the following areas:
Overseas expansion in Asia, Africa, Europe & Americas
Atlantic World Encounters
State & Religion
Women, Marriage & Family: China & Europe
Scientific Revolution
Enlightenment & Revolution: Europe, Americas, India
Capitalism & Industrial Revolution
Colonization: Europe in Africa & Asia
Westernization & Nationalism: Japan, India & the West
World War I
World War II
Cold War
New Democracy Movements
Globalization