{"id":538,"date":"2007-09-21T21:33:29","date_gmt":"2007-09-22T01:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=538"},"modified":"2024-02-11T20:26:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T01:26:24","slug":"mason_japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2007\/09\/mason_japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason, R.H.P. and J.G. Caiger: History of Japan, A, Revised Edition<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read part of A History of Japan, Revised Edition<\/cite>, by R.H.P. Mason and J.G. Caiger<\/strong>, quite some time ago<\/a> when I was reading The Tale of Genji<\/cite> along with some friends. (I haven’t finished yet, unfortunately.) I read it in full while I was actually in Japan. Which was belated, yes, but at least I got to it eventually.<\/p>\n

This is a compact book that is very good at outlining broad social trends and economic forces. Sometimes this makes it a little dry, but I think that’s the nature of the genre, and I was able to supplement it with cool stories in tourist brochures.<\/p>\n

Written and updated by Australians, the book isn’t shy about talking about the effect of Western imperialism on modern Japan. However, it sketches the post-World War II period with only a very light and broad brush, which I found disappointing. I also felt that it could have paid more attention to women in Japanese society. For instance, women’s suffrage is described as a consequence of the Occupation, with no discussion of whether Japanese female suffragettes existed. And I believe the Ainu are mentioned perhaps twice. (We shipped this, along with some other non-fragile, non-urgent items, to ourselves to save luggage space, and haven’t received the box yet.)<\/p>\n

With those caveats, however, I found this a useful way to get a quick grounding in Japanese history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read part of A History of Japan, Revised Edition, by R.H.P. Mason and J.G. Caiger, quite some time ago when I was reading The Tale of Genji along with some friends. (I haven’t finished yet, unfortunately.) I read it in full while I was actually in Japan. Which was belated, yes, but at least … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mason, R.H.P. and J.G. Caiger: History of Japan, A, Revised Edition<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,9],"tags":[153,305],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-non-fiction","tag-caiger-j-g","tag-mason-r-h-p"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2793,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/2793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}