Japan

This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion....

In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred.

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century....

Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments....

Martha Sherrill brings us to a world that Americans know very little about---the snow country of Japan during World War II....

Almost 24 hours to the minute since the tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi, Unit 1 exploded. The building wrenched apart, sending shards of irradiated concrete and metal knifing through the air in all directions....

From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior....

In the Spring of 1974, 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal....

Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history....

Brought to you by Penguin. Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to...

More than a mere warrior code, Bushido is the moral breath defining Japan. In this seminal work, Inazo Nitobe unveils the ethical roots of the samurai, blending Buddhist calm, Shinto loyalty, and Confucian morality. Through unyielding virtues like rectitude, honor, and stoic self-control, the author shows how the "Way of the Warrior" transcended the battlefield to mold a nation's soul. Though the feudal system has vanished, discover how its spirit—fragrant and delicate as the wild cherry blossom—remains vital in modern Japan.

開戦、退位、戦争責任、憲法、日米安保……「本音」ではどう思っていたのか?戦後80年 昭和100年いま明らかになる人間・昭和天皇の実像

There are very few modern hobbies that can honestly claim they have lived three distinct lives. Most begin as a craze, settle into a niche, and then either fade or become quietly institutional. The Pokémon Trading Card Game did something stranger and more enduring. It began as a children’s pastime, became a cultural flashpoint that adults argued about in staff rooms and school assemblies, then returned decades later as a booming adult obsession with its own economy, celebrities, and mythology. That alone would make it worth studying.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II, and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This book details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed and how effective they were in battle.

Japan's blissful isolation changed with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. In awe of the American weapons and ships, the Tokugawa shogunate quickly realized that they needed to evolve and modernize their military to survive, and a time of rapid change descended on Japan. Within a mere 30 years, the Tokugawa period’s great samurai caste was extinct. Military service was no longer the exclusive domain of the privileged warrior class who had combined the military with an intricate network of social status and vassalship to their feudal lords.