These are Illustrated with beautiful images by Japan's most famous artists.The haiku form is a perfect way of capturing a moment of experience, and in this book, the experiences are extended by the illustrations.Special use is made of the artist Utamaro's exquisite Ehon mushi erabi (A Selection of Insects). The fact that this sophisticated artist chose insects for one of his most luxurious woodblock printed albums underlines the Japanese appreciation of even the most diminutive of animals in the haiku.This beautiful book inspires readers to regard the animal kingdom with new eyes.

    The long history of ninjutsu is often murky; surrounded by mystery and legend. Here, for the first time, is an in-depth, factual look at the entire art of ninjutsu, including the emergence of the ninja warriors and philosophy in feudal Japan; detailed historical events; its context in the development of other schools of martial arts; and the philosophies and exercises of the school today.Based on more than ten years of study and translation of authentic Japanese texts, including many that have never before been translated, this is the most comprehensive and accurate study on the art of ninjutsu ever written outside of Japan. This ninja book includes studies of ninjutsu history, philosophy, wisdom, and presents a wide range of information from authors, historians, chronicles and scrolls in order to foster a deep understanding of this "shadowy" art.For those who train in ninjutsu, for other martial art practitioners, for historians, and for anyone with interest in Japanese feudal history or Japanese martial arts, The Ninja: Ancient Shadow Warriors of Japan shines a light on this enigmatic subject.

    Departing from this tradition, The Battle for China brings together Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholars to provide a comprehensive and multifaceted overview of the military operations that shaped much of what happened in political, economic, and cultural realms. The volume's diverse contributors have taken pains to sustain a scholarly, dispassionate tone throughout their analyses of the course and the nature of military operations, from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the final campaigns of 1945. They present Western involvement in Sino-Japanese contexts, and establish the war's place in World War II and world history in general.

    This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.

    Beginning with a description of the oldest attested stage of the language, Old Japanese (approximately the eighth century AD), and then tracing the changes which occurred through the Early Middle Japanese (800-1200), Late Middle Japanese (1200-1600) and the Modern Japanese (1600-onwards) periods, a complete internal history of the language is examined and discussed. This account provides a comprehensive study of how the Japanese language has developed and adapted, providing a much needed resource for scholars. A History of the Japanese Language is invaluable to all those interested in the Japanese language and also students of language change generally.

    Yet the single year in which Japanese forces occupied territory from Alaska to Indonesia was followed by three years of terrible defeat. Nevertheless, until the shattering end of the war, many Japanese continued to believe in the invincibility of their country. But in the diaries of well-known writers--including Nagai Kafu, Takami Jun, Yamada Futaru, and Hirabayashi Taiko--and the scholar Watanabe Kazuo, varying doubts were vividly, though privately, expressed.Donald Keene, renowned scholar of Japan, selects from these diaries, some written by authors he knew well. Their revelations were sometimes poignant, sometimes shocking to Keene. Ito Sei's fervent patriotism and even claims of racial superiority stand in stark contrast to the soft-spoken, kindly man Keene knew. Weaving archival materials with personal recollections and the intimate accounts themselves, Keene reproduces the passions aroused during the war and the sharply contrasting reactions in the year following Japan's surrender. Whether detailed or fragmentary, these entries communicate the reality of false victory and all-too-real defeat.

    In The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler (Potomac Books, Inc., 2006), he contended that Hitler could not have been deterred from going to war by any action the Allies could plausibly have taken. In Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win (Potomac Books, Inc., 2007), Record reviewed eleven insurgencies and evaluated the reasons for their success or failure, including the insurgents’ stronger will to prevail. Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq (Potomac Books, Inc., 2009) includes one of Record’s most cogent explanations of why an often uncritical belief in one’s own victory is frequently (but not always) a critical component of the decision to make war. Record incorporates the lessons of these earlier books in his latest, A War It Was Always Going to Lose: Why Japan Attacked America in 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor is one of the most perplexing cases in living memory of a weaker power seeming to believe that it could vanquish a clearly superior force. On closer inspection, however, Record finds that Japan did not believe it could win; yet, the Japanese imperial command decided to attack the United States anyway. Conventional explanations that Japan’s leaders were criminally stupid, wildly deluded, or just plumb crazy don’t fully answer all our questions, Record finds. Instead, he argues, the Japanese were driven by an insatiable appetite for national glory and economic security via the conquest of East Asia. The scope of their ambitions and their fear of economic destruction overwhelmed their knowledge that the likelihood of winning was slim and propelled them into a war they were always going to lose.

    Through a rigorous analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies, and a variety of other discourses, Robert Thomas Tierney demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, he shows that the trope of the savage underwent several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period--violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographic other to be studied, happy primitive to be exoticized, and hybrid colonial subject to be assimilated.

    Drawing on new research by scholars from Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, it moves beyond the conventional focus on the mechanics of the Japanese colonial state to provide new perspectives on a highly significant relationship that shaped the nature of the modern East Asian political landscape. Ranging from the seventeenth century to the chaotic aftermath of empire, the papers collected here consider Tokugawa Japan's halting engagement with Taiwan as a key world historical moment that illuminates changing attitudes towards maritime expansion; the ways in which the colonial project was packaged and sold in print as well as image; and the complex legal discourses surrounding the making and unmaking of empire. Together they show how influence flowed both ways between Taiwan and Japan and the importance of inter-Asian interactions.This book was published as a special issue of Japanese Studies.