9 Of The Best Japanese History Books

Hane was a first generation Japanese American who spent his life studying and teaching others about Japan. Hane was born in the U.S. and raised there until being sent to live with an uncle in Hiroshima in the 1930s. He returned to the U.S. in 1940 and was eventually interned in Arizona for 18 months during World War II. He later worked as a Japanese teacher and went on to earn a BA, MA, and PhD from Yale, writing many books and articles over the course of his life. While some of his other work is probably better known (particularly Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan), this short history is a good, readable place to start.

This is a travel guide, but Kajiyama does such an excellent job bringing Japanese history and historical sites together that it deserves to be more widely read, even if you are not planning a trip at the moment. The section on Kyoto, for example, covers history on the Tale of Genji, Oda Nobunaga, and Sakamoto Ryoma in ways that I think are fairly accessible for someone with limited knowledge of the subjects. And since it is a guidebook, there are beautiful pictures to look at along the way of temples, museums, and the occasional mouth-watering food.

This is the story of several young girls sent from their homes in Japan in 1871 all the way to study in America. This is the history of three of the girls and their experiences. It is hard to imagine how jarring this must have been for them. They ended up living in the U.S. for ten years before returning home to Japan, where they eventually became proponents of and pioneers in girls’ education.

This is a tetralogy that will suck you in from the first pages with its artwork and history of Japan. Mizuki lived through and saw so much that I could not put this down. After finishing this, I read the other volumes on his life from 1939 to 1989 in rapid succession. I highly recommend these. And if these appeal to you, you might also like this list of historical manga.

This is a more contemplative look at Tokyo, as the title suggests. If you want a deeper dive into one of Japan’s most famous cities, then this may be a nice addition to your reading. Sherman did not grow up there, but she moved to Tokyo in 2001 so this gives her some perspective over roughly 20 years. She has said in an interview that when she first moved there, she spent two years walking around Tokyo and then spent another ten years writing this book. She called it her love letter to the city.

Gordon is of Russian origin, but spent a decade of her childhood in Japan and regarded it as home for a long time. She learned to speak Japanese fluently and returned to her ruined homeland as a U.S. civilian employee on Christmas Eve 1945. Her parents had spent the war there and their reunion was a bittersweet one. As both sides of her family are Jewish, many relatives in Europe were sent to Auschwitz or other death camps. During this time, her parents suffered along with millions of Japanese during World War II. This is a fascinating account of Gordon’s life, how she returned to Japan during this tumultuous time, and how she and her parents kept their love of music and the arts alive through these years.