Next weekend is the Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale. I mention this because it’s a great place to pick up books for cheap, and books like this one can be found aplenty. I grabbed The Modern History of Japan because I knew very little about Japan. The schools I attended in Seattle covered European history to death, but little of other areas of the world.
I have no idea if this book is accurate or not, though I have little doubt it gets its basic facts correct. But I’m not sure how good it is with the context. What was the reason why Choshu joined up with other daimyo to overthrow the Shogun and place the emperor in a position of paper supremacy? I don’t know. It’s my first book on Japan and so all I have is the perspective of Beasley, and I have no recourse to original material either.
Still, I thought the book was a steal at $1, because even the basic facts of Japan’s history were unknown to me. I’d heard the term Meiji Restoration
before, but I had no idea to what event it was referring. Now I know. I knew that Japan had colonized Korea, but I didn’t know when this happened. Was it immediately before World War II? Or was it something that went back as far as time? Turns out neither, but definitely closer to World War II.
Title: The modern history of Japan
Author: W. G. Beasley (William Gerald Beasley)
Publisher: Praeger Publishers
Format: Paperback
Length: xi, 352 p. (includes index)
Publication date: 1963
Subject: Japan — History
LC classification: DS881 .B4 1963
