Catalogue

Forthcoming September 2021

This collection of fourteen key papers deriving from CEEJA’s second international conference exploring the Japanese history of technology, concentrates on the routes to acquiring and transmitting technical knowledge in Japan’s modern era – from the very earliest endeavours in establishing opportunities for acquiring a technical education to the translation of foreign textbooks and manuals.

Published in two volumes and thematically structured in three Parts, this wide-ranging work both complements and expands on the subject-matter contained in the first volume entitled Technical Knowledge in Early Modern Japan (2020).

Forthcoming - June 2021

Born into the post-war American Occupation of Japan, Nobuko Kanasaka (née Fujimoto) emerged as a woman of her time, both tempered and inspired by the vicissitudes and challenges of occupation life (up to 1952), followed by the hazards of the early post-occupation growth of the economy, the ‘miracle’ years and finally the ‘post-bubble’ years.  This illustrated volume comprising over 400 photographs and illustrations, tracks both Nobuko’s life experiences from early childhood and celebrates her achievements as an amateur artist, calligrapher and writer.

Forthcoming May 2021

Filling an important gap in extraterritoriality studies and in the history of Anglo-Korean relations, this benchmark study examines Britain’s exercise of extraterritorial rights in Korea from 1884 until Korea’s formal annexation by Japan in 1910. It shows how the treaty provisions—which provided for Britain’s ideal extra-territorial regime—were influenced by Britain’s considerably greater experience in Japan beginning in 1859. The caseload proved miniscule in the absence of any large British commercial or maritime presence. Nevertheless, it provides an insight into extra-territoriality’s operation outside major commercial centres and ports. Britain’s protection of Chinese interests in Korea in the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895 is also covered.

April 2021

This important new study by one of Korea’s leading historians focuses on the international relations of colonial Korea – from the Japanese rule of the peninsula and its foreign relations (1905–1945) to the ultimate liberation of the country at the end of the Second World War. In addition, it fills a significant gap – the ‘blank space’ – in Korean diplomatic history. Furthermore, it highlights several other fundamental aspects in the history of modern Korea, such as the historical perception of the policy-making process and the attitudes of both China and Britain which influenced US policy regarding Korea at the end of World War II.

April 2021

This is a pioneering study of a worsening human rights issue, supported by documentary evidence (Part I) with Part II providing an extensive collection of primary sources, including international covenants, US Trafficking In Persons and Congressional reports, and Japanese government papers.

January 2021

Sorge’s activities between 1930 and 1942 have tended to be lauded as those of a superlative human intelligence operator and the Soviet Union’s GRU (Soviet military intelligence unit) as the optimum of spy-masters. Although it was unusual for a great deal of inside knowledge to be obtained from the Japanese side, most attention has always been paid on the German side to the roles played by representatives of the German Army in Japan.

January 2021

Harry Parkes was at the heart of Britain’s relations with the Far East from the start of his working life at fourteen, to his death at fifty-seven. Orphaned at the age of five, he went to China on his own as a child and worked his way to the top. God-fearing and fearless, he believed his mission was to bring trade and ‘civilisation’ to East Asia. 

October 2020

Drawing on the papers presented at CEEJA’s* first international conference addressing the long-neglected field relating to the generation, dissemination and application of technical knowledge in Japan from the Edo to the Meiji periods, this volume provides a valuable selection of new research on the subject, from Hashimoto Takehiko’s detailed examination of Tanaka Hisashige’s ‘Myriad Year Clock’, Regine Mathias’s paper on mining and smelting, and Erich Pauer’s overview of Japanese technical books in the pre-modern era, to Suzuki Jun’s detailed account of boiler-making in late nineteenth-century Japan.

* Centre Européen d’Études Japonaises d’Alsace, 2017

September 2020

Throughout his academic career Louis Cullen’s main research interest has been foreign trade - originally that of England, Ireland and France, but from the mid-1990s, his focus turned to Japanese history resulting in his critically acclaimed A history of Japan 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds.

July 2020

Distinguished author and former Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at Oxford, Arthur Stockwin here explores his personal journey from being the son of medical/dental parents in Birmingham, England, to becoming a specialist in the politics and modern history of Japan, while at the same time reflecting on his considerable personal experiences of Japan and assessing its current and possible future condition.

June 2020

Part personal memoir, part professional flashback, part socio-cultural commentary, The Call of Japan chronicles the author’s experiences during his 40 years of living in Japan, from 1950 to 1974 as a ‘reluctant banker’, and from 2003 to the present as a writer. The Call of Japan comments extensively on the country’s economic, political and cultural realities during the crucial early years of post-war reconstruction as well as during more recent times.

June 2020

Draws on archive of material, a first in English to take an in-depth look at Kyoto’s modern transformation – its reinvention after ‘collapse’ (Meiji Restoration) and relocation of the imperial court to Tokyo. Includes: introduction, chapters on notable historical elements that sustain Kyoto as a quintessentially modern ‘ancient capital’ today.

Announcing Renaissance Books’ new series on Imperialism in East Asia. ISSN 2633-3007 Volume 1

April 2020

As part of the growing scholarship on family and empire, this study examines Britain’s presence in China through the lens of one family, arguing that, as the physical embodiment of the imperial project, it provided a social and cultural mechanism for mediating Britain’s imperial power, authority and presence, and forging connections and networks throughout the expanding British world.  Drawing on public and private papers, it breaks significant new ground in its development of those themes.

March 2020

With the addition of a contextualized introduction, here is the first annotated translation of the eighth- century clan history Tōshi Kaden or the History of the Fujiwara House. Hitherto, scholars have focused on the more famous eighth-century imperial histories Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, but other sources such as the History of the Fujiwara House provide a narrative that complements or deviates from the official histories. 

January 2020

Early Photography in Vietnam is a fascinating and outstanding pictorial record of photography in Vietnam during the century of French rule. In more than 500 photographs, many published here for the first time, the volume records Vietnam’s capture and occupation by the French, the wide-ranging ethnicities and cultures of Vietnam, the country’s fierce resistance to foreign rule, leading to the reassertion of its own identity and subsequent independence.

October 2019

In Northern Light , former Counsellor and Minister Counsellor at the Norwegian Embassies in Bonn and Tokyo, Nils-Johan Jørgensen challenges many existing perceptions and stereotypes relating to his country of birth, making this an essential reference for those interested in Norway – its people and culture, as well as, more broadly, in international affairs and European history in particular.

October 2019

First study published in English. An intractable, divisive social problem with roots in pre-history, the ongoing discrimination against Dōwa communities (Buraku). Identified with ‘unclean’ work linked to specific occupations, their resulting marginalization and isolation within society as a whole remains a veiled yet contested issue.

January 2016

With an author’s Foreword written on the day that the Abe cabinet decided to ‘revise the  Japanese Constitution by reinterpretation’ (Tuesday, 1 July 2014), this timely examination of Japan’s post-war history by two leading historians committed to democratic politics is highly challenging and prompts serious reflection by anyone concerned with the future of Japan. 

February 2019

In 1862, a British merchant was killed by samurai at Namamugi, a quiet village near Yokohama. One year later, a British fleet bombarded Kagoshima to extract reparations, reducing much of this south-western city to ash. This captivating re-telling, locates the story firmly within the wider context of British imperial expansion in East Asia.

July 2017

Drawing on his (unpublished) letters to his father, this new study on A.B. Mitford focuses for the first time on his life in Japan from 1866 to 1870 and examines the part he played during one of the great turning points in world history: the 1868 revolution that saw the demise of Japan’s 250-year feudal dynasty ruled over by a Shogun and its replacement by a modern state – the so-called Meiji Restoration

March 2020

Isabella Bird’s best-selling book on Japan is republished here, but with a difference: for the first time, it is now fully annotated with supporting commentaries, providing the twenty-first century reader with an enhanced informed view of the new ‘modern Japan’ as Bird experienced it in 1878.

April 2019

This new study examines the history of the relations between the British and Japanese monarchies over the past 150 years. Complemented by a significant plate section, with many rarely seen historical photographs and illustrations, together with supporting chronologies, this volume will become a benchmark reference on the subject.

June 2013

This is a translation of the only known detailed account of the building of the notorious 262-mile-long Thai-Burma Railway by one of the Japanese professional engineers who was involved in its construction.

May 2019

A mini memoir, plus thirty journal papers and scholarly essays, thematically structured under: Media, Society, Culture and Environment, Democracy, Government and Nationalism,and a selection from his portfolio of book reviews. This offers valuable access to the scholarship of Huffman that both complements and enhances existing published works.

July 2017

Fully illustrated in colour, here is the first introduction in English to one of Korea’s outstanding cultural assets – the banchado (‘painting of the order of guests at a royal event’) relating to all those taking part (1800 people) in the eight-day royal procession to Hwaseong ( Gyeonggi Province ) organized by King Jeongjo in 1795 in order to visit the tomb of his father and to celebrate his mother’s sixtieth birthday.  

February 2019

Hardback published 2006; softback reprint published to mark ascendancy to imperial throne in 2019. Became Crown Prince of Japan in 1989, on death of his grandfather Emperor Showa, Prince Naruhito studied at Merton College, Oxford, 1983-1985. This marked the first time that anyone in direct succession to the throne had ever studied outside Japan.

October 2015

Published in association with the Japan Society, London

Its 57 essays continue to celebrate the life and work of the men and women who played roles in a variety of spheres in the history of Anglo-Japanese relations and deserve to be recorded and remembered. They give a picture of facets of modern history and institutions. They shed light on controversial issues and illuminate successes and failures.

October 2015

Published in association with the Japan Society, London

This tenth volume in the series, comprising a total of sixty-nine essays, offers a further wide-ranging selection of  portraits and themes that celebrate the life and work of men and women, both British and Japanese, whose contributions are worthy of being remembered in the history of Anglo-Japanese relations.  Here, the portraits of key figures range from Sir Stamford Raffles in the nineteenth century to Lisa, Lady Sainsbury in more recent times

June 2018

This book reviews the role of British Foreign Secretaries in the formulation of British policy towards Japan from the re-opening of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It also takes a critical look at the history of British relations with Japan over these years.

June 2015

After six decades following developments in Japanese society, economy and culture and as a well-known ‘leftie’ – the author describes the evolution of his cognitive and evaluative/emotional perceptions of Japan, and explains why he can no longer be described as a ‘Japanophile’.  To which are added essays on more general issues of the present day, such as events in the Ukraine, Iran and Israel, the ‘Piketty boom’, Japan and China, Japan and North Korea and the ‘new Cold Wars’

January 2015

Carmen Blacker was an outstanding scholar of Japanese culture, known internationally for her writings on religion, myth and folklore – her most notable work being The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan . Importantly, a third of  the volume comprises significant extracts from the author’s diaries covering a period of more than forty years, together with a plate section drawn from the her extensive photographic archive , thus providing a rare opportunity to gain a personal insight into the author’s life and work.    

August 2018

Here is a history of the South China Sea (SCS) conflict and the stakes for each of the bordering states and China’s (PRC) interaction with them. It examines the US’s role in the region. It examines the PRC’s perception of the SCS, and its strategy to claim the islands and waters, in the context of the strategies of other stake-holding nations.

July 2017

Here is a rare first-hand account by a foreigner living and working in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century which provides a unique insight into this important period of Japan’s history, and complements the existing archival material. Beginning life as a student interpreter, he went on to become an assistant in Korea, Vice-Consul in Yokohama and Osaka, Consul in Nagasaki and Dairen, then Consul-General in Seoul, Osaka, Mukden and Tientsin.

October 2018

This two–volume collection, supported by an in-depth introduction that addresses origins, actuality, endgame and afterlife, brings together for the first time contemporary documentation and more recent scholarship to give a broad picture of Japan’s Treaty Ports and their inhabitants at work and play in the second half of the nineteenth century. The material selected, shows how the ports’ existence and the Japanese struggle to end their special status, impacted on many aspects of modern Japan beyond their primary role as trading stations

April 2018

Incorporating over 250 illustrations, this is the first comprehensive study in English of French artist and caricaturist George Ferdinand Bigot (1860-1927) who, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, was renowned in Japan but barely known in his own country. Even today, examples of his cartoons appear in Japanese school textbooks.

November 2015

Sir Hugh Cortazzi who was to follow in John Pilcher’s footsteps, has compiled the defining reports to Whitehall from Pilcher’s time in Tokyo – resulting in an invaluable record of Japan’s progress at this important point in her post-war history, as well as providing unique insights into the activities, hopes and expectations of the British government in her dealings with Japan. Pilcher was appointed British Ambassador to Japan in 1967 and brought to his role a particular understanding of Japanese civilization together with a critical analysis of Japanese attitudes and way of life.  

 [Published in association with the Japan Society, London]

September 2016

The History of Manchuria, 1840-1948 is the first fully researched and documented history of its kind, representing a significant benchmark in scholarly studies of the region. In this his long-awaited final major work, Ian Nish provides valuable new perspectives on the turbulent times suffered by the three north-eastern provinces of China, generally called ‘Manchuria’, in the course of the last two centuries.

June 2017

This book places Bird’s visit to Japan in the context of her worldwide life of travel and gives an introduction to the woman herself.  Supported by detailed maps, it also offers a highly illuminating view of Japan and its people in the early years of the ‘New Japan’ following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, as well as providing a valuable new critique on what is often considered as Bird’s most important work

April 2018

Supported by a number of high-profile case studies, this volume offers a comprehensive exploration of Japanese-German economic relations through the whole of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. It also offers clarification on the structure and processes of the world economy in the same period.

October 2016

Published in association with the Japan Society, London

This book takes an in-depth look at the study of Japan in contemporary Britain, highlighting the many strengths but also pointing out some weaknesses, while at the same time offering a valuable historical record of the origins and development of Japanese Studies in British universities and other institutions.    

July 2015

Like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey , the Finnish Kalevala , the Buryat Geser , and the Kirghiz Manas , the Yakut Olonkho (declared In 2005 by UNESCO to be ‘A Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’) is in this case an epic dating back to the ninth century – when the ancestors of the present-day Yakut peoples lived on their former homeland and closely communicated with the Turkic and Mongolian peoples of the Altay and Sayan regions. 

August 2018

This is the first comprehensive, fully illustrated study of Korean shaman gods to be published in English; it includes 130 full-colour plates of shaman gods, many dating back to the eighteenth century.

August 2018

“Japan had a tortuous relationship with internationalism between 1840, when Shibusawa was born, and 1931, the year the nation invaded Manchuria and when he passed away. The key to understanding Shibusawa’s thoughts against the background of this history, the author shows, lies in the concept of ‘people’s diplomacy’.” [Akira Iriye]

June 2018

In this his latest work, Gavan McCormack argues that Abe Shinzo’s efforts to re-engineer the Japanese state may fail, but his radicalism continues to shake the country and will have consequences not easy now to predict.   The significance of this book will be widely recognized, particularly by those researching contemporary world politics, international relations and the history of modern Japan.

February 2016

Wars and Rumours of War brings together a wide selection of contemporary English-language primary material in order to illustrate how authors from both Asia and the West saw contemporary events. For the first time, this new series makes available books, journal essays and periodical articles, many of which may be absent from standard bibliographies, with a view to widening debate and underlining the diversity of opinion that was available to contemporary audiences in Asia and beyond who were  anxious to follow developments as they unfolded.

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February 2017

Supported by an in-depth Introduction and contextual analysis, this six-volume set complements Series I (1918-1937 – From Armistice to North China), addressing the history between 1938 and1945. Despite the widespread operation of war-time censorship and surveillance, publishers in the West and, to a lesser degree in East Asia, put out a range of material that remains of considerable value to later generations. Some of the texts selected are undeniably partisan but the quantity of the published material (and to some extent its quality) left the general public with a vast and varied archive of printed matter  that deserves to be consulted and debated by today's researchers and students. Greater attention is given to American and British literature rather than Chinese or Japanese simply by virtue of the practical realities.

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October 2016

This is a highly readable account of Adams’ voyage to and twenty years in Japan, told for the first time from a Japanese perspective, and  enriched  by detailed observations of Japanese culture and society at this time. New light is shed on Adams’ relations with the Dutch and his countrymen, including the disastrous relationship with Captain John Saris, the key role likely to have been played by the munitions, including cannon, removed from Adams’ ship De Liefde in the great battle of Sekigahara (September 1600), as well as the shipbuilding skills that enabled Japan to advance its international maritime ambitions. This is the real story that inspired James Clavell’s Shogun

October 2018

On a battered ship, drifting into Usuki Bay, barely standing, are 23 Dutchmen and 1 Englishman, the remnants of a fleet of 5 ships and 500 men that had left Rotterdam. Englishman, William Adams, later known as Anjin Miura by the Japanese, who went from wretched prisoner to one of the Shogun’s closest advisers is the centrepiece of this book.

May 2015

Here is a witty and learned literary excursion into the world of humour and comic literature as revealed inter alia by the works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Oliver Goldsmith and Henry Fielding – leading in the second half to some glorious insights and observations provided by the author’s life experience in the world of diplomacy. It is a rich and fascinating mix of literary idiom, the theatre of the absurd and the comic element of the human condition.

August 2009

This is a modern tale, a journey of the heart, a road back, revisiting many cities and enduring Eastern and Western sentiments to light and lighten our understanding of life’s fleeting appearance. It is a way of honouring the life of a loved one, to tell a personal story that reflects the shared, universal truth of the silence of loss from Kakimoto to Goethe and beyond.

July 2015

Here is an extraordinary love story that speaks to the crisis of separation and scorn, love and hate, following the Korean War ceasefire in July 1953. Four years later, Sukey, a graduate with much promise, falls in love with Kwon, a man who confesses to having been a North Korean spy. Although hostilities are over, enmity towards the North is the social norm and deeply entrenched.  With anti-spy campaigns, street searches, and arrests of any suspect, citizens are urged to be vigilant and to report on any suspicious goings-on.

July 2013

A fascinating and highly personal introduction to Korea. Part memoir, part miscellany, it introduces traditional and contemporary Korean culture through a series of essays, stories, anecdotes and poems. Confucianism, Buddhism, relationships, everyday living, language and literature are comprehensively covered.

January 2016

It is 1942. Shanghai after Pearl Harbor. Newly-arrived Eiko Kishimoto, a twenty-year-old, London-educated Japanese housewife, settles into a privileged existence in the French Concession as a member of the community of the Occupying Power. Initially, her days are filled with the rich fare of high society life, amidst an ebullient, cosmopolitan community that makes up Shanghai.

March 2015

Including  a description of her survival as a small child in Japan’s Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, this book is an enthralling account of the late Dorothy Britton’s life, loves and experiences in an amazingly varied life and career. Amusing episodes and stories of fascinating people and relationships abound in the book, as do valuable insights into topics such as the post-war Occupation and its impact on everyday life, the role of women, learning Japanese, marriage customs, food and many other aspects of Japanese culture and society.

August 2012

Written by the pen of a high-ranking swordsman who has immersed himself in the warrior traditions of old Japan for over fifty years and author of several books relating to the Samurai culture and its traditions, here are some absorbing short tales supported by the author’s own illustrations that will take the reader directly back to both ancient and medieval Japan.

August 2012

Torii Enshin was the son of a high-ranking warrior in the late-fifteenth century and a skilled swordsman. He was disturbed at the sad lives of the common people and became a priest. He intended to devote his life to healing the poor who suffered everywhere in war-torn Japan. But then found himself reluctantly having to use his samurai skills once again…

April 2011

A unique take on modern life in Japan’s capital city. A Japan of trains, everyday to and fro, carriage scenes and theatre, vistas from the window, advertising posters. Each to be savoured through a specific Tokyo line – the Odakyu. Pitched as creative text and line-graphics, Tokyo Commute: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line offers on-track and off-track observations.

This is a beautiful translation by John Farndon (with Olga Nakston) of the late Ravil Bukharaev’s literary existential novel memoir in which he explains to his wife how his Muslim faith and ideals influenced both his love for her and his understanding of life and self, particularly his quest for truth and ‘authenticity’.