Reddit mentions: The best japanese history books

Sorry for the wait, delivering!

I recently moved, so most of my books are still in boxes. However, I've already unboxed the best ones, so I'll list them here (note that most of them are not written by anthropologists per se, but are good books nonetheless):

1. Mechademia. Technically, it's not a book (it's a journal), but it's by far the best publication in the area. There are lots of articles on the most diverse subjects, and even reviews of related publications. (If you haven't got JSTOR access, come see us on /r/Scholar!);
   
2. Frederik Schodt's Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics is THE classic on manga. 10/10, will definitely read again. (there's a sequel, Dreamland Japan, but I haven't read this one yet);
   
3. Paul Gravett's Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics is a good overview on the history of manga;
   
4. Roland Kelts' Japanamerica: How the Japanese Pop Culture has invaded the U.S. is fairly good, specially the chapter on hentai. But beware: it's a little less academic than I would like it to be;
   
5. Patrick Galbraith's [The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to The Subculture of Cool Japan] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Otaku-Encyclopedia-Insiders-Subculture/dp/4770031017/ref=pd_sim_b_6) is an amazing book, a fast read and full of awesomeness. I can't recommend it enough. (He has another book called Otaku Spaces and has recently edited a book about idols, but I have yet to read these two);
   
6. Last but not least, Hiroki Azuma's Otaku: Japan Database Animals is an excellent book on otaku culture. Azuma's overwhelming knowledge is well conveyed by the translation, IMO.
   
   OK, I'll stop here. If you want more recommendations (specially stuff on other languages, like Portuguese, French or Japanese, that I didn't bother listing here), feel free to PM me ;)

Today I'm mainly working, but I'm really enjoying it lately so it's really not so much of a chore.

On the music front I'm really enjoying Olly Murs at the moment, it may be a bit wushu washy but it's super catchy and makes you smile

Reading wise I have almost (last 10 pages) finished Hiroshima by John Hersey and although it is obviously a bit grim, it's a fascinating read and I would definitely recommend it to you if you are at all interested in what happened to the people of Hiroshima after the bomb dropped. Once I've finished it I've got the entire Hitchikers collection by Douglas Adams to power through (sans the first one which I have already read)

As far as thoughts, I went good shopping yesterday and bought honey cured bacon on a whim (it was only 10p more in lidl) and holy crap! I was sceptical at first but the honey actually caramelised as I cooked it this morning and it is by far the greatest bacon I have ever had!

To answer your bonus question, I am with EE, from an old Orange contract, and although their phones and signal are alright, their customer service is shite! I have been double charges multiple times and have only been able to get a refund for one or two...

I can't give too much insight as to how to deal with this, as I decided to leave after 2 years. There were many things I loved while I was there, but especially at the "working level" (I was a grad student) I found the cultural differences to be such that I was not confident I would be able to succeed. Also, I found that while language was a barrier, I had more and definitely graver misunderstandings due to culture than to linguistics, and I decided I did not want to change most of my morals/ideals.

That being said, I would like to highly recommend the book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict. Ruth was an anthropologist tasked with analyzing Japanese morals, ideals and mentality towards the end of the second world war, in order to understand what surrender conditions would be accepted (she was one of the major proponents of allowing the Emperor to maintain his position) and how to administer the subsequent occupation, which ended up being very different from how Germany was handled, for example. Although the book is dated (1946), I found it to be very insightful and helped understand a lot of the experiences I went through.

If you enjoy reading, and want to round this out, I also recommend The Making of Modern Japan by Kenneth Pyle (not the same title by Marius Jansen, which I haven't read and can't comment on... probably also good). This does not focus so much on mentality, but you do see a lot of how society was actively shaped through history and it explains a lot (i.e. I assumed company-loyalty stemmed exclusively from medieval Japan, whereas it takes it's roots primarily from the creation of Zaibatsu and policies they created to keep skilled artisans in the early 1900s).

And good luck!

>: Did the Japanese ever study how they'd get the raw materials from the captured islands back to Japan? It is my recollection that the Japanese merchant fleet was ill suited to transport significant quantities of oil even before the war began. I am less sure about the Japanese ability to transport large quantities of other materials.

I've read extensively about the IJN and IJA, and by and large, they did not. the Japanese military in general was incredibly bad at logistics and combat support.

> nothing suggests the US public would support a declaration of war on Japan.

I tend to feel the same way, but the Japanese military leadership did not. Perhaps they did not understand the degree to which american leadership was constrained by public opinion.

>With that said, I still think the mistake was attacking Pearl Harbor.

The mistake was going to war with the US, period. The japanese were not a first rate power in the 1930s. they had benefited for years from their geographic isolation and lack of local opposition, which gave them delusions of grandeur, but they were third rate at best. When the best of the Japanese army got absolutely pasted by second rate russian divisions, this should have been a huge wakeup call to japanese leadership. Instead, it was used by the navy as a justification for making war on the US and UK simultaneously.

>the Japanese would have surely cut off China's supply lines and forced the Chinese to surrender or agree to an advantageous peace treaty



Unlikely. resistance by Mao and Chang would have continued, if perhaps much more weakly. China was simply too large for japan to control, a bottomless pit capable of swallowing endless numbers of japanese soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, supplies that they could not spare.

>Japan could have improved upon the Zero fairly easy if its vulnerabilities were discovered - at the very least the generational changes such as a supercharger, pilot armor, self sealing tanks, and larger ammo capacities could have been implemented

Again, not very likely. It is important to remember that while japanese progress at modernization was very impressive, they were no where near the level of the west. My favorite story to demonstrate this is the zero. when it was first built, it was arguably the most advanced plane in the world, but the first prototypes were carried from the factory to the airfield in wooden, horse drawn, hay carts. Japanese industrial development was very shallow, and concentrated in a few frontline areas, with an overall capacity only about that of Italy. the zero was such a lightweight plane because of the inability of japanese industry to build engines of sufficient power density and reliability for heavier planes.

On a more philosophical level, the Japanese were unlikely to discover the weaknesses in their strategy because they would have been spending most of their effort fighting the the chinese and colonial garrisons. Their enormous weaknesses in mechanization and, for lack of a better term, weight, would not have been made apparent battling enemies who were even more industrially deficient than they were. Meanwhile, the US would still have been building big, heavy planes capable of surviving over germany.

>Everything in Hawaii had to be shipped from the United States.

this cuts two ways. the US had a considerably easier time, and much more capacity, for delivering supplies to Hawaii than the Japanese could ever have for delivering ordinance. And in the eastern pacific, there are no islands for bases for subs, planes, etc. to raid those supply lines

>they could have repeatedly sortied 8-10 carriers worth of aircraft on Hawaii's military installations, rendering it unusable for a long period of time.

repeatedly only in the sense of months apart, which would give the US more than enough time for the US to pour far more into Hawaii than the Japanese could ever hope to bring against it. As for invading the islands, it was almost a complete impossibility. The Pearl Harbor operation really represented the limit of japanese logistical capabilities. They did not have the manpower or amphibious transport to mount an invasion on the scale needed to take islands with so many american troops (tens of thousands even before the war). And given the japanese deficiencies in material, artillery, etc, I cannot imagine them storming beaches marine style without truly enormous casualties.

Anyhow, don't mean to be rude, you were asking good questions, I just happen to have read a lot about this particular topic. If you are interested, I would recomend Kaigun and its companion book Sunburst as the single best resource on the IJN. They are masterful books.

edit: several points for clarity.

I, too, was looking for some really good Japanese history books and in my searches I found that these are among the best: A History of Japan, by George Sansom.

They start with pre-history and go up to 1867. Sansom's stated reason for not continuing his history beyond this year is that he had lived too close to events of the Meiji Restoration (1868) for him to develop a perspective that only distance could supply. For later events, The Making of Modern Japan (Amazon), by Marius B. Jansen, another outstanding scholar of Japanese history, would be a good choice. Since this history begins at 1600, there are overlapping accounts of the Edo period, but from two quite different perspectives.

An alternative presented by t-o-k-u-m-e-i:
>The best overview text in terms of presentation and interpretation for 1600 to the present is Gordon's A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present.

>The Jansen book is also good, but I (and most of the profs I know) feel that Gordon's interpretation is better

In short, this set is a good buy and is likely to remain a standard text for decades to come.

I've only just recently started reading the first book of the series and I find it very insightful. It starts by describing the geography of Japan and how that shaped and molded the early Japanese and their sensibilities.

Amazon Links:
A History of Japan to 1334
A History of Japan, 1334-1615
A History of Japan, 1615-1867

Google Books Previews:
A History of Japan to 1334
A History of Japan, 1334-1615
A History of Japan, 1615-1867

Author:
Sir George Bailey Sansom

Edit:
The author also has a shorter book published earlier which focuses primarily on culture.
Amazon - Japan: A Short Cultural History
Google Books - Japan: A Short Cultural History

Edit2:
Added an alternative suggestion for the history from 1800 onward given by t-o-k-u-m-e-i.

Second-language learner here; my abilities sound pretty much identical to yours.

If you a) haven't heard of it already and b) can look past the juvenile BS, erin.ne.jp is really good for listening practice. Conversations aren't dumbed down, but not impossible.

For reading practice, I enjoyed 日本との出会い and assuming you're not entirely clueless on kanji (can you read the title) I think it'll help you pick them up super quickly. Tons of vocab as well.

If you'd like a dictionary recommendation, [the Oxford one] is incredibly useful for particles and general usage.

>writings on NGE's impact on anime and western culture

I don't know whether this will be any good to you as I've only seen the first volume of this (I think there are six so far) but if you can find this, it's probably your best bet for that kind of stuff. Not really sure on contents of any given issue, but you can probably find that info somewhere. 'Essay' probably means university, and that means university library, which means inter-library loan is an option too.

Another one to definitely read: Otaku - Japan's Database Animals, by Hiroki Azuma. Don't worry, it's translated very well. This is dense stuff but fascinating, and reads like a design doc for TVTropes; it also focuses significantly on Eva. A must-read for you, I think, given your focus. Certainly a favourite of mine - it changed how I see all media.

I don't know about anything locally where you are, but I'm finding there are some great resources available online and in books.

• Toshiro Odate's book is full of great information about tools and the workshop. It's the thing I see most commonly referenced.
  
• The Workbench Book has some more information on Japanese-influenced workbenches that look less back-breaking than Toshiro's ways of always sitting on the floor.
  
• Here's a detailed blog journey of a man discovering Japanese woodworking techniques from Odate's book. It's nice to see a person has done the things Odate has described in his book this century :P . Oh! And he has in there somewhere a great video playlist of japanese woodworkers using all sorts of tools.
  
• Here's a Japanese youtuber you might check out lots of workshop maintenance and DIY projects:
  Bayashi23
  
• And here's Ishtani, a Japanese furniture maker

1. The Manhattan project was kept under wraps until late. Even allied leaders were kept in the dark. Stalin was officially notified that the bomb was being developed at Potsdam (after the successful test of a plutonium-based, implosion-triggered device in New Mexico. However, he probably already knew what was going on as a result of his intelligence apparatus.
   
   
2. Japanese scientists had informed their government that such a bomb was impossible to build. No warning that the bomb had been constructed was given to Japan. The Potsdam declaration warned that Japan must surrender or face destruction. The nature of this destruction was never given, and the Japanese government perceived the warning as a sign of weakness. Additionally, a number of American scientists felt that the bomb ought to have been used against an uninhabited island or some other possible point of demonstration. These scientists were outmaneuvered by Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan project (who was quite obsessed with making sure that the bomb made the biggest impact possible). Their proposal never reached Harry Truman.
   
   
3. As implied above, Japan did not know that the United States had such a weapon. The warnings given by the United States were circumscribed and not particularly specific.
   
   For a good history of the atomic bombings from the traditional American perspective I'd recommend Richard Frank's book on the subject. For an alternative look, I'd recommend Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy. They serve pretty well to show the debate on the subject.

I'm glad you're thinking about this period and these issues, so please take my reply as encouragement to continue rather than discouragement. I've discussed the problems with the idea of "sakoku" and what you're calling the Christian samurai revolt here and here. Please read over those and then come back to this.

So you have some fundamental problems with your premise that you would need to rethink (and get away from popular history books on Japan, they're terrible and misleading). But I think you can still make a paper out of the contact end. At this point, there's little point on focusing on isolation because almost no culture group is entirely isolated from every other culture group. It rarely happens, and in Japan's case, never happened.

Your example with the system of alternating attendance had more to do with the centralization and control needed post Sekigahara as well, so to warn you up front, you can't connect that to "isolation." Though, keeping all of that in mind, you might look at the Satsuma clan. I think that could lead you to a very interesting paper, but that's all the hint I'm going to give you since this is for homework. If you want to ask about resources you can start with, or if you have any questions about my other comments, I'm happy to help and answer, but I'm going to leave you on your own for making connections past that. This book is probably your best place to start.

Hope that helps.

The last one isn't a "miracle" it's coincidence. There was a guy who was in Hiroshima hospital who just happened to duck down and tell himself to be brave when the bomb hit. The flames ripped the glasses off his face and burned the entire hallway, but he was unharmed due to DUMB LUCK. Was that a miracle? Is Buddha the real god now? Read the non-fiction account "Hiroshima" for more stories like that.

http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-John-Hersey/dp/0679721037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381494773&sr=8-1&keywords=hiroshima

As far as Fatima goes, there have been dancing plague epidemics in Europe and many other examples of mass psychosis due to water contamination / etc. There have also been laughing epedemics and PLENTY of people who mistake high up atmospheric phenomenon like red sprites for UFOs.

http://www.amazon.com/Midway-Battle-Doomed-Japan-Japanese/dp/1557504288?tag=duckduckgo-d-20
This is a compelling read.

http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-War-1931-1945-Saburo-Ienaga/dp/0394734963?tag=duckduckgo-d-20
Not always well written, sometimes comes across as a polemic, but contains some great sources.

http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Japans-Kamikaze-Foreword-Admiral/dp/B000HZBKEI%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26t

That's all I can think of from the top of my head. I would also reccomend John Costello's *The Pacific War. It's a great synthesis, well sourced, and doesn't treat Burma as a sideshow.


Might I also suggest a crosspost to r/history? They're a helpful bunch.

This, really, is what you want. Hiroshima by John Hersey. Yes, you can read it online for free; I recommend you buy it from Amazon for 8 dollars, because then you'll also get the fascinating Afterward.

This is a real classic of American journalism. You follow the lives of six people who were all living in Hiroshima at the time: what their lives were like just before the bombing; what they were like for the next few minutes, for that morning, that day, and the days afterwards. The hard copy comes with an Afterward: Hersey went back to Japan 40 years later to follow up on all six survivors.

Strongly recommended.

It seems that you are more on top of the new shows than me, but I think your last line sort of nails it. No one expects a lot of these shows to be life-changing. They are just for fun. What is different is that the aesthetic medium. A lot of Marvel and DC comics are pretty baseless (and the film versions even more) but the fanboy culture surrounding that seems to get a pass in the US (although I have sense some resistance to that lately).

If you really want to dig into this though, there are a number of scholars that have been thinking about the 'Why?' question concerning manga. Azuma Hiroki is the big name here, and has some interesting things to say (though it can be a bit cerebral). Here is another article by Stevie Suan that discusses Manga and Anime as well.

EDIT:

Why am I getting downvoted?

I read https://www.amazon.com/War-Japan-1467-1615-Essential-Histories/dp/1841764809 , and that's how I got into it, but people seem to like https://www.amazon.com/Sengoku-Jidai-Nobunaga-Hideyoshi-Ieyasu-ebook/dp/B078X3MVBL , although I've never read it. Actually, this is one of those rare moments when I will vouch for YouTube channels like Extra Credits ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDsdkoln59A). It's a great and insightful overview to start with, and then go to the books for details.

I'd like to take a moment to plug Hiroshima by John Hersey, which deals with first-hand accounts of survivors of Hiroshima. It does touch on reactions from the general populace but mostly follows a handful of survivors in the aftermath of the attack and what happened to them decades later. One of the best books I've read in recent years and a must for anybody remotely interested.

Sorry if this sort of thing isn't explicitly permitted but it's a great book I thought would be relevant to anyone interested in this question.

>The observed colors of the illumination ranged from purple to green and eventually to white.

Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age.

>The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined...

General Groves' report on Trinity Test

>The first thing I saw was the light. It was so bright that I was momentarily blinded. Simultaneously, I was surrounded by an intense heat. The bomb released a 4,000-degree heat wave in the instant that it hit the ground. I panicked, covered my eyes, and lay low on the floor. I couldn’t hear any noise and the trees weren’t rustling. I thought something was up, so I cautiously looked through the window toward where I’d seen the flash of light. The skies were blue with no cloud in sight, but there was this bright red ring of fire high up in the skies above the city! In the middle of the ring was a big white ball that kept growing like a thundercloud—this really round thing. It kept getting bigger and bigger until it finally hit the outer fire ring, and then the whole thing blew up into a huge red fireball. It was like I was witnessing the birth of a new sun. It was so perfectly round! When I was a child, I saw Asama Mountain erupt from really close up, but this was much more full-on. The clouds were white, but shining in rainbow colors as they rose up. It was really beautiful. People call it the “mushroom cloud” but it’s actually a pillar of fire: The bottom part is a column of flames and the top part is a fireball, which metamorphoses into clouds as it keeps rising up.

>Then, below the pillar of fire, pitch-black clouds started spreading horizontally above the mountains surrounding Hiroshima. They consisted of sand and dust that were being pushed up from the ground due to the pressure generated from the blast. They were coming toward me like a tidal wave.

Dr. Hida, Survivor of Hiroshima

I can't find the text of it online, but there were multiple accounts like Dr. Hida's in The Last Train from Hiroshima.

I wouldn't be able to do the topic much justice through a reddit post, but I'll reccomend you some great books on the topic

The encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology

The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the damned

The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies

The book of Yokai: Mysterious creatures of Japanese folklore

That oughta be a good start, because believe me the topic is as interesting as it is detailed.

Trail and error, really. I have around 1600 hours logged for HOI3 and I've tried several strategies.

I learned right away that BC and CA (heavy cruisers) to be useless. They take up valuable leadership points and are redundant. Battlecruisers are fast but are powerless against battleships (as we learned irl in WWI). The armored cruisers they were built to hunt didn't even exist in WWII and any that existed were usually upgraded leftovers of WWI (HMS Hood). I have yet to find a good use for heavy cruisers. Initially I had them used for hunting down convoy raiders, but I find a light cruiser and a few destroyers to do a better job while being able to run from a more powerful force. Heavy cruisers slow down the rest of the flotilla and are quickly sunk.

/u/CarloTheCurious below advocates a larger carrier force, which I also find effective. It is also more historically accurate with Imperial Japan's naval doctrine (A great book on this subject is Kaigun, but I digress). However, I find my method to be more flexible. I can still concentrate my squadrons when facing a superior force. Plus, I can deal with more than one threat at a time, which is essential with Japan.

I didn't understand Japanese culture. I still don't, but I have a slightly better understanding of it than I did before reading "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword".

It's a book by a cultural anthropologist written at the end of WWII, to help the American soldiers during the occupation of Japan. So, I'm sure it's quite dated, but the underlying concepts are still there (I would think).

The whole concept of the book seemed somewhat foreign to me (no pun intended). It is hard to wrap my mind around, but the underlying social contract is based on an entirely different foundation than our Western one. I highly recommend it.

Nice to meet you, fellow redditor. The Atlantic's WW2 photo series is one of the best around. I always forward the links to my contacts.
I agree with the suggestion of having more photos taken by the Axis soldiers.
Also, you'll have a tough job on documenting the Holocaust without shocking the viewers. I hope that doesn't stop you from dedicating an entry to this subject.
Also, when talking about Japan's surrender, don't forget to mention the part where USSR declares war on Japan. A number of authors thinks that this war declaration was more important that the atomic bombs (read this).
I will read your IAMA. Keep up the good work, Sir.

If you want to just get a taste of imperial Japan and some pretty interesting firsthand accounts, check out "inventing Japan" by Ian Buruma.

https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Japan-1853-1964-Library-Chronicles/dp/0812972864



If you want to get a bigger view of the condition japan was in before beginning their empire building, check out "Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan" by Mikiso Hane


https://www.amazon.com/Peasants-Rebels-Women-Outcastes-Underside/dp/0742525252


If you want an even bigger view of how and why Japan was treated differently from Germany after the war check out, "the wages of guilt" by Ian Buruma


https://www.amazon.com/Wages-Guilt-Memories-Germany-Japan-ebook/dp/B00YLQU0GS

I would recommend these three books if you want to get a better idea of the everyday life of what everyday life was like pre-war, mid-war, post-war.

If you want to get into the psychology of Japanese people, I would recommend "the Japanese self in cultural context" by Takie Sugiyama Lebra

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Self-Cultural-Logic/dp/0824828402/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?keywords=the+Japanese+self&qid=1571829682&sr=8-12


Another interesting book to add after reading these would be, "multiethnic Japan" by John Lie. It points out the ripples of what Japan's empire building brought.

https://www.amazon.com/Multiethnic-Japan-John-Lie/dp/0674013581/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=multiethnic+Japan&qid=1571829847&sr=8-1


Check em out!

Hm, you might be interested in John Hersey's "Hiroshima." It was originally intended to be a magazine article detailing the horrors of the event, but it eventually made its way to become a freestanding piece.

Hersey was an American journalist, but the story deals with six Japanese citizens. It wasn't exactly "imprinted" by the attack, but it's a short enough read to be worth the while. It's interesting because it's non-fiction, but reads like a novel. I enjoyed it quite a bit. His writing is a bit sparse, but it does the trick.

There isn't any one big thing that stands out here. It is the combination of cultural sensitivity, language, and being in Japan. What I mean by cultural sensitivity is that your idea of common sense is not the Japanese idea of common sense. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword does a great job of pointing some of the bigger differences out. Just read the first 3 pages after the forward here and you will begin to see what I am trying to say.

How is your Japanese? The stress of feeling illiterate takes some getting used to as well.

Lastly, a lot of Japanese women are carefree and outgoing when outside of Japan, but get right back into the tatemae and honne aspects of their relationships here. You feel like you know someone, but then are astounded when they slip into 'formal mode', with a straight face and lots of bowing.

That's interesting. I've only torrented music once, and that's because it wasn't available otherwise.

Growing up in a place where there wasn't a live music scene at all, I've never looked at music in anything but the long-term sense, comparing crystallized recordings from across wildly different musical eras and contexts. It's this that allows me to look at a chill-out track by Yoshinori Sunahara and say, hey, this sounds a bit like Lofticries by Purity Ring . That's probably a pretty useless connection to make, but I enjoy making it. The converse of this is that I've never learned to enjoy music as a moment, as a unique personal expression that comes only once between you and the players and then is forever lost. There might be something truly magical in that, that I will never know. I'm just a database animal.

Anyway, it's good that you've found music that speaks to you, but be aware that when I am elected next month I will get back at you by raping your ears with The Protomen, indie game soundtracks, and mod tunes.

e: also klezmer, Balkan brass, and Balkan folk. And a better example of comparing different musics might be Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac playing the Serbian folksong Bojarka vs. Smetana's Vltava/Die Moldau. Turns out, Vltava is based on an Italian melody that spread to Czech and became a folk song there. In fact, it became a folk song in a bunch of places. I'm just an amateur, but I'd hazard a guess that Bojarka has the same origin.

Just saw this. Thanks for the shout out! In The Invention of Religion in Japan, I do argue agains the idea that religion is a natural category or a cultural universal. I could say a lot about this and the debates in Religious studies/anthropology if you are curious. The video series never finished because I got saddled with a bunch of administrative work chairing a department.... Sorry. I'm about to go to a meeting but if you are curious about the evidence/argument about "religion" as a category I'd be happy to share my thoughts or summarize the state of the field. I'll check back periodically over the span of the day to see if there are any comments.

I've heard great things about "Showa", a graphic novel that covers Japanese history between 1926 and 1989:

https://www.amazon.com/Showa-1926-1939-History-Japan/dp/1770461353

Edit:

Also recommend "Speed Tribes" By Karl Taro Greenfield. Easy read:

https://www.amazon.com/Speed-Tribes-Nights-Japans-Generation/dp/0060926651/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542859841&sr=8-1&keywords=speed+tribes

These are my first fine woodworking tools, yes, however I used to build sets so I am familiar with basic wood work. In the months leading up to my purchase I read two books on Japanese tools and woodworking. There are links to both at the bottom. Both have extensive chapters on the use and set up of all japanese tools. I recommend checking them out if these tools interest you!! Also the samurai carpenter has some killer how to videos on the subject. Thanks for the advice and good luck setting up your kanna. Take a sick day and knock it out haha... 🌲🌲

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Woodworking-Tools-Tradition-Spirit/dp/0941936465

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Woodworking-Handbook-Tool-Techniques/dp/0881790036

Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey's Hiroshima is a gripping account of survirors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in the first year after the weapon's use. The first edition follows the survivors for the first year. A newer edition from 1985 covers the subjects in the ensuing decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(book)

Highly recommended!

This?

But not this or this?

Also, I know I'm a bit late to the party, but this installment was great!

Clavell's Shogun is loosely based on actual history. Very, very loosely. Decades of history are blended together, and various historical figures are conflated into new characters. It's not even close to an accurate reflection of the political and cultural situation at the time, and of course it shoves in a white guy hero... Yeah, it's an entertaining read, but it also tends to make historians froth at the mouth.

The issue with ninjas is that most of the ninja mythology was invented during the 1800s... a good 200 years after the end of the "Warring States" period when much of this ninja action supposedly took place. A whole slew of popular novels were written featuring Sanada Yukimura (a samurai commander known for his cunning tactics) and his "Ten Braves," who were all legendary ninja. Sarutobi Sasuke is probably the most famous of the Ten Braves. Although Sanada Yukimura and the Ten Braves ultimately lost to Tokugawa Ieyasu (whose dynasty would rule Japan for the next 250 years), they were made out to be folk heroes with almost supernatural skill and cleverness.

...However, there's virtually zero evidence that any of these ninja ever existed outside of novels. The whole "ninja" mythos was invented in the 1800s, partly because it sounded cool and partly because the descendents of Sanada's samurai compatriots had suffered two hundred years of oppression under the ruling (but declining) Tokugawa regime, so there was still plenty of simmering resentment. Those two factors together sold a hell of a lot of books.

Samurai did use spies and saboteurs, but they weren't dudes who ran around in black Cobra Kai outfits slinging shuriken at each other. They were basically normal samurai. Political tensions were high during the Warring States era, but most samurai were surprisingly blatant about their backstabbing. Why go through the trouble of using ninja when you can simply lie, bribe, and threaten your way into power?

The biggest influence on modern ideas about ninja was actually the theatre. Kabuki stage plays and bunraku puppet plays both make use of stagehands who dress all in black and cover their faces with black cloth. Since the actors were brightly dressed and painted, these black-clad stagehands were "invisible." So a "ninja" character could creep around the stage in a stagehand's uniform, totally ignored by the audience until they revealed themselves.

Anyway, you were asking for books! The real history of the samurai is, at least to me, much more interesting than made-up ninja stories. It's full of power struggles and epic battles and tragic miscalculations and dirty tactics. It's good stuff. If you're interested, I highly recommend basically anything by Stephen Turnbull. He's written several visual guides to major battles of the samurai era, with tons of illustrations and analysis. He even has a book on ninja, although as I mentioned, ninja are a pretty contentious point among Japanese historians and any modern "ninja training school" that claims authenticity is full of pure bullshit.

Turnbull's War in Japan 1467-1615 is a good place to start. Osaka 1616 and Sekigahara 1600 (by Anthony Bryant) are the real source for Clavell's "Shogun" novel. Europeans actually did have a pretty significant role in Japan's civil wars, but not to the romanticized extent of "Shogun."

Those are probably the most accessible and easy-to-read books on the Warring States era. Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa is a semi-fictionalized but very well researched novel that covers some of the same time period, but it's a much more challenging read. Most of the other academic books I have are pretty dry, so start with Turnbull for the fully illustrated action version~

First, textbooks should be less expensive for students. Increasingly university libraries are offering digital copies of textbooks for free to students (they pay a broad license to the publisher), who can read them on their computer or pay $50 to get a copy printed and bound at Kinkos if they want.

But no Reddit or Quora post will ever been a replacement for a good book. The level of detail required to describe difficult material is too much to be read on a website. Those posts that you find useful? They were written by people who... read many books on the subject.

I often referred to a textbook I was assigned my first quarter of graduate school both in subsequent classes and in professional settings. Same goes for a few technical books about coding or methodology. Heck, I still flip through my old Norton Anthology of Poetry from undergrad every now and then.

"Textbook" is also a bit of loose term. It seems like you have in mind broad summaries like a high-school textbook. But plenty of books are just lengthy works of original scholarship that are not available elsewhere and that would not be understood in full if read as a summary. Reading Embracing Defeat, as I did for a Japanese History class, could not be replaced by reading the Wikipedia entry on the occupation of Japan.

One of the most interesting things about Midway is that there is also some very good Japanese stuff on it, like,

http://www.amazon.com/Midway-Battle-Doomed-Japan-Japanese/dp/1557504288/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347892398&sr=1-5&keywords=midway

In Defense of Sanity is a collection of some of the best essays from G.K. Chesterton, sampling from his larger works and his newspaper columns.

I especially recommend "What I Found in My Pocket"

There is also the fantastic Kaigun, which is a complete history of the IJN and how it developed its tactics, technology, strategy, organization, everything from day one until the end. Amazing book

not really sure in what grade or class you are, but i don't think these 5 questions will cut it. if you want to go into the topic why people like anime i recommend you giving Otaku - Japans Database Animals a read: http://www.amazon.com/Otaku-Japan’s-Database-Hiroki-Azuma/dp/0816653526

This is probably the best book to start with. This is also good.

• Beans: Thalia, Amazon
  
  
• Le petit prince: Thalia, Amazon
  
  Same with the other two. They are available in Germany, but not for you :P
  
  Jokes aside: Contact Amazon/Google support (I guess you might need to change country settings? No idea.) or buy them from a German shop like thalia.de, ebook.de, hugendubel.de or your local bookstore.

Zombie horrors from the 9th dimension.. I don't buy it.

>From Henry Holt and Company and Macmillan Books in the Editorial reviews on Amazon.com

>It is with deep regret that Henry Holt and Company announces that we will no longer print, correct or ship copies of Charles Pellegrino's The Last Train from Hiroshima due to the discovery of a dishonest sources of information for the book.
It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny. The author of any work of non-fiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction.

>Mr. Pellegrino has a long history in the publishing world, and we were very proud and honored to publish his history of such an important historical event. But without the confidence that we can stand behind the work in its entirety, we cannot continue to sell this product to our customers.

If you're looking for some excellent books on the subject,

The Making of Modern Japan by Kenneth Pyle
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Japan-Kenneth-Pyle/dp/0669200204

Japan Rising also by Kenneth Pyle
http://www.amazon.com/Japan-Rising-Resurgence-Japanese-Foundation/dp/1586485679/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346004741&sr=1-1&keywords=japan+rising+pyle

I'd just look in the library for at least the first book, it's pretty expensive.

"Treatise on the Gods" by H. L. Mencken is great, studies religion and its origins and very matter-of-factly spells out how it has been used to obtain and maintain power over people. You might find a cheaper used copy on Half.com.

If you're into WW2 stuff, there's "Tigers In The Mud", a story about the war from a German Tiger tank commander's perspective. Similarly there's "Hiroshima", tells about the bomb and its devastation from some different peoples' perspectives.

I read him some. I really enjoy the anthology In Defense of Sanity and his novel The Man Who Was Thursday.

The shitstorm makes perfect sense when it you recognize it is the type of mistake KanColle made rather than the mistake itself. The problem is that Kantai Collection is a game that is almost five years old, and that thrives on its community interactions. Most of the endearment towards characters are generated by fan-made content. I have changed my opinions on many different characters based on reading various fan manga and artwork. Kantai Collection is the best example you can find of the database model work put forward by Hiroki Azuma in his book.

The collective interaction that is Kantai Collection means that the developers need to be responsive to fan feedback if they want the work to be successful. Intrepid's character design was a tone deaf move that was dismissive of fans' desires. It showed that the developers either didn't listen to their fans, or thought they could get away with ignoring their fans. It breaks the illusion that the fans are partners in this enterprise as opposed to subordinates.

To put it in perspective, the feelings that fans experienced over Intrepid is the same feeling that causes rebellions and revolts in the real world. The Stamp Act of 1765 is what galvanized many of the American colonialist into opposing the Crown, and British inability to effectively respond and compromise resulted in the American Revolution.

I don't use that example to say that Intrepid's design is the same as the American Revolution, but to say that humans have clear and predictable psychological responses to actions by those in authority. This incident won't cause a revolution or revolt, but it could very well destroy the Kantai Collection franchise if the developers can't effectively respond. KanColle's saving grace is that there isn't strong competition. Azur Lane is the closest thing, but it has its own flaws and isn't in a position to exploit Kantai Collection.

If you haven't read it, "Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil", is a fascinating, if somewhat dry, account of how we were able to project our power across the Pacific. Hopefully our current strategists and logisticians have reread it a few times.

Thanks for the comment, very interesting to read. I'm now slightly more knowledgeable, and just a hair more dunk to make this a great impulse buy!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674009916?pc_redir=1414055008&robot_redir=1

Here are a few good ones that I have read and would definitely reccomend.

Speed Tribes: Days and Night's with Japan's Next Generation
by Karl Taro Greenfeld

> http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Tribes-Nights-Japans-Generation/dp/0060926651/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267655889&sr=8-1

Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West
by T.R. Reid

> http://www.amazon.com/Confucius-Lives-Next-Door-Teaches/dp/0679777601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267655960&sr=1-1#noop

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: Of Exile And Excess In Japan
by Stefhen F. D. Bryan

> http://www.amazon.com/Black-Passenger-Yellow-Cabs-Excess/dp/0615268102/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267656194&sr=1-1

those should keep you busy for a while.

Jake Aldenstein (first non Japanese reporter for a major Japanese newspaper) wrote a book called Tokyo Vice, which has elements of what you are looking for. Its mostly about his life as a gaijin reporter, versus just being a gaijin.

Just to add a little to /u/tryptaminex's answer, you might be interested in looking at some of the difficulty we've had in applying religion as a term cross-culturally. Jason Josephson's The Invention of Religion in Japan is a nice one for this. There's a pretty good review of it here

> but a something more profound with a lot on the literature, legends, culture, art, history of Japan.

If so, you might want to look for something that's not a guidebook.

This book on modern culture might be an interesting read.

Edit: Ian Buruma's "Inventing Japan" may prove to be a very readable introduction to modern history.

> Japan was more the allies then the good old USA

...what? The US had direct occupation and total governmental control of Japan for six years after WW2, and had the largest presence of any of the Allies there for the next several decades. The UK/France were too busy rebuilding their own countries and trying to maintain their control over their colonies to be rebuilding Japan, and Russia would have had to fight the US to try to do so.

Embracing Defeat is a great book about it and about how it transformed Japanese society.

Amazon is wonderful.

Hiroshima by John Hersey
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679721037/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_b7KUtb05ZJ0TB

I've got a couple suggestions for you:

First up is a historical fiction called the Samurai's Tale by Erik Haugaar. This story covers a young Uesugi retainer who is taken in by the Takeda after his clan is bested in a battle and details his rise from the ranks to becoming a low ranked retainer for the Takeda. Ends right around the Battle of Nagashino and the fall of Takeda Katsuyori (https://www.amazon.com/Samurais-Tale-Erik-C-Haugaard/dp/0618615121)

The second one is War in Japan 1467 - 1615 by Stephen Turnbull. This one is a non-fiction that covers from the Onin War all the way up to the Siege of Osaka, ending the Sengoku Jidai. This was required reading in a Japanese history course I took. It covers a pretty broad range so it doesn't go over anything too thoroughly, but I think it'll be a good primer for you (https://www.amazon.com/War-Japan-1467-1615-Essential-Histories/dp/1841764809)

Happy studying!

Well, the obvious immediate go-to would be Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941, which is pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

In addition to describing the design philosophies driving Japanese naval architecture during their buildup to the Second World War, it also describes the evolution of the strategy, tactics, organization, culture, and technology developed by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The book also has a fairly broad chronological focus, encompassing the entire era between the foundation of the IJN and the opening battles of the Pacific War.

It's considered one of the more prominent Western works on the topic in recent years. It's also fairly engagingly written, so I'd recommend you check it out.

If you're interested in naval air power's development by Japan, I'd also check out Sunburst, by one of the same authors, as well as the acclaimed Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Parshall and Tully, which both provide in-depth analysis of Japanese carrier doctrine and tactics. The latter book is particularly groundbreaking in the Western scholarship of the battle for overturning several longstanding myths surrounding Midway.

EDIT: Fun fact - Kaigun is the only reason why I know who the heck Emile Bertin was :)

(Not an anthropologist, just an interested layperson.)

I regard religion as a problematic category that's used in a bunch of different ways and and increasingly difficult to apply the further you get away from Protestant Christianity. (A close friend of mine has done extensive work on how Meiji Japan imported and adapted the western concept of religion.)

Theologically, I don't believe in an independently existing deity with literal psychological properties like will, desire, knowledge, etc. I'm rather ambivalent about God-language; I have no problem with people using "God" to mean "the ground of being" or "our ultimate concern" or whatnot. I generally prefer the term "religious naturalist" to atheist, agnostic, or pantheist, but I'll accept any of them.

I'm also a Unitarian Universalist. I need to wrap this up now so I'm not late to church.

Great read and highly recommended. You can pick it up electronically dirt cheap... here it is on Kindle for $0.99 Book of Five Rings

The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen is excellent.

Another fantastic book that recounts stories of survivors is "Hiroshima" by John Hersey.

I wouldn't say "as described my me", more me trying to do as I was shown. At one point, one of the older Japanese woodworkers was asked how long it would take me to master my kanna. And without any hesitation, he answered "Five years". And that was only three months ago.

I don't know of any videos in particular. I will recommend Toshio Odate's book: Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use https://www.amazon.com/dp/0941936465
I was re-reading it the other day and everything he wrote was the same as what I was told.

Speed Tribes is a fascinating book about the Japanese underworld.

To OP: there is a book about first hand recollections of the bombings already written, in case you were not aware.

Here is the canonical westerner's guide to taking care of Japanese woodworking tools, which has sections on sharpening, maintaining chisels, etc.

Thank you so much for posting this!

If you want a simple to understand guide, I would recommend "The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore", which is also by Michael Dylan Foster. It dosen't go in depth that much, but it has a wide variety.

​

Here is a link to the book OP is talking about.

For naval commanders in particular:

The last few chapters of [Kaigun] (http://www.amazon.com/Kaigun-Strategy-Technology-Imperial-1887-1941/dp/159114244X)

I think www.combinedfleet.com has good resources too, although I think they focus more on equipment and tactics.

This already exists. A Homestay in Japan (日本との出会い) is a good example.

I highly recommend reading "last train from Hiroshima" first or second chapter is very descriptive.

Edit: Here's a link

The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: What Drove Japan’s Decision to Surrender?

An essay by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, the author of Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan.

Fairly long read, but interesting and thorough.

TL;DR Russians were scarier than the nukes.

You would like this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Kaigun-Strategy-Technology-Imperial-1887-1941/dp/159114244X

It was a fucked up event. One account in John Hersey's Hiroshima, non-fiction mind you, was of a survivor who walked past an anti-aircraft battery. They had been watching the sky as the plane flew over. Not only did it shear their faces off, but their eyes had boiled and the liquefied remains were pouring down their cheeks. Still alive.

The Book Of Yokai. Cool book about creatures of Japanese folklore https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520271025/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_2rtRCbEJQY7PQ

I didn't check them all, but the first one is being offered to me as a 3.37 Euro Kindle edition here. I guess something about your country settings or the location of the Amazon website you use doesn't line up.

Start here

there was an article on this recently

I think it got posted to r/history ?

Refers to this new book

Author's webpage

Other resources

I'd say they should read this book, but you'd have to get them to actually read.

Is Speed Tribes still considered relevant? Dunno.

The Making of Modern Japan.

You mean bosozoku and post-bubble economy?

I found a link for the book (https://www.amazon.com/Speed-Tribes-Nights-Japans-Generation/dp/0060926651#immersive-view_1479918284037).

The unfortunate thing about these types of books is that, while they may offer an interesting insight into the time the book was written, the information is perishable. Speed Tribes of Japan was written over 20 years ago, so a LOT has changed in Japan since then.

I have four. I believe they are books that everyone should read.


Invisible Man


To Kill a Mockingbird


Hiroshima


The Catcher in the Rye


Each one of these have changed the way I see the world. They all have amazing stories for the perspective of characters I normally would not have been able to identify with.

Here's the image I printed off.

From GeGeGe no Kitarou ep 9

^^^This ^^^is ^^^the ^^^book ^^^i'm ^^^reading~

I remember reading a book on it, i think it was this one http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-John-Hersey/dp/0679721037 but it was quite some time ago. I remember being really disturbed as a kid reading about it. I think this was probably around the age of 12 or so.

From a military history standpoint, Stephen Turnbull's War In Japan is good. Very much focused on battles and wars rather than more general history, but good for what it covers.

For a more lower level sort of look at the period, The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto is good. It looks not so much at grand battles and strategies and focuses more on how the wars actually impacted life for people.

I am sorry, but where do you even get your facts? Hiroshima was in fact chosen not for military (there were plenty of much bigger military targets), but because it was unbombed, and allowed to assess the impact on civilian population.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679721037/palmerrothm00-20

Terrorists do not choose civilians because they are defenseless, but because in democratic societies they directly influence - and therefore are responsible for - policy. For instance, in Imperial Russia terrorist attacks were directed at Czar and his henchmen.