Modern Japan: A Very Short Introduction

• Looks at many contemporary concerns and issues in Japan - exploring its history, economy, politics, and culture
• Examines what it means to call Japan a 'modern' society, and what 'modern' has meant to the Japanese
• Debunks many myths, for example explaining how Japan was never completely isolated from the outside world: even during the long period of so-called sakoku (isolationism, 1601-1853)
• Examines the continuity between pre-Pacific War Japan, and post-war Japan

Readership: Anyone with an interest in modern Japan, including tourists, policymakers, business people, students, and academics. The book is a quick way to get up to speed on debates on modern Japan without having to tackle a lot of specialist literature.

Christopher Goto-Jones, Professor of Modern Japan Studies, University of Leiden

"A wonderfully engaging narrative of a complicated history, which from the beginning to end sheds light on the meaning of modernity in Japan as it changed over time. An exemplary text." - Carol Gluck, Columbia University

"With remarkable clarity and breadth of coverage, Goto-Jones introduces the major topics and themes of the modern history of Japan, giving particularly thoughtful attention to the complex and tortured efforts of figures seeking to define and defend a properly Japanese modernity, and those striving to come to grips with the trauma and shadow of World War II." - Andrew Gordon, Harvard University

"Lively, lucid, and full of insight, this is an outstanding exploration of Japan's troubled modern past." - Stephen S. Large, Wolfson College, Cambridge University

Introduction: What is Modern Japan?
1: Japan's Encounter with the Modern World
2: Overcoming Modernity in Imperial Japan
3: Overcome by the Modern: the US Occupation
4: Japan's Miraculous Modern Economy
5: Towards a Post-Modern Society
6: Normalcy and Japan's Place in the Modern World
Further reading