Author, Researcher and Lecturer with a Passion for History, Music and Japan
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration (明治維新 or Meiji Renewal in Japanese), dated from the proclamation of the restoration of political power to the emperor on 3 January 1868 (or the ninth day of the twelfth month of the fourth year of Keiô, according to the…
From the “PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION” of History and the State in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The World, the Nation and the Search for a Modern Past (pp. ix–xi; footnotes omited) ‘Historians place the highest value on monographic research, based on the archives.’ ‘We historians, I often think, tend to stop…
Yanaka 谷中村: A losing battle to save a village The Watarase Yûsuichi nature reserve 渡良瀬遊水地 looked bleak on the overcast April day when I visited it, but also invitingly peaceful. Spring had not quite made it to the area yet, it seemed; most of the trees were still bare,…