A book about Japan that you should read: Japan Story

Book review by Matt S. 

"Without military power", Japan's education minister announced in a radio address back in September 1945, "we go forward with culture." His comment envisioned the country's peaceful reinvention via education and the arts.

Finding quality accounts of the development of Japan through its modern history is often let down by the great bugbear: World War 2. Japan's role as the enemy in that conflict has led to a demonisation of the entire nation and its people through then, and many of the years since. That has been necessary to maintain the reductionist (and historically inaccurate) "goodies vs. baddies" nonsense that allows America to be the all-liberating heroes. However, the social, political and cultural dynamics within Japan from 1850 onwards is so much more interesting than "one day Japan decided to attack Pearl Harbor for no good reason, so we beat them and now they do whatever we tell them to." Christopher Harding's account of Japan's modern history is one of the most interesting and nuanced analyses of the real cultural dynamics of modern Japan that I've come across.

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