Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #200337 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Ken Coates, Professor of History, University of New Brunswick
[This book] is destined to find a place as one of the most important books in Japanese studies

Derek Massarella, Chuo University, Japan
A first-rate introduction to the history

Laurie Barber, University of Waikato
This is an extraordinary book that will appeal to student, specialist and general reader alike

Customer Reviews

Too much preaching, otherwise very good
As the author explains in the foreword, this book's purpose is to summarise the history of Japan in one volume for laypeople. And that what it does, quite well indeed.

At first, I found the book really interestingly written and incredibly pleasant to read. The author seemed like a knowledgeable and likeable person who really loved his subject. I had just recently read a book on history of China, and it didn't give me such a feeling.

Unfortunately, the second half of the book is not good at all. The first reason to this is that about 1/3 of the book deals with the period until 1868, and almost 2/3 with the period from 1868 on. Considering Mr. Henshall's remarkable ability to make history so vivid and captivating, I was hugely disappointed to see the centuries before the XIXth covered so briefly, even superficially. Back then, Japan was so immensely different from Europe. I am certain that there would have been so many things worth writing about which would have been far more interesting than yet another post-WW2 prime minister getting involved in yet another scandal.

What makes this disproportionate overrepresentation of the XXth century even more disturbing is that in the latter part of the book, the author starts talking less and less about what happened and more and more about what he would have liked to have happened.
It would appear that all Japan's post-WW2 problems and setbacks were for nothing. If only the government of Japan had employed Mr. Henshall as their adviser, none of those economical and political crises would have ever happened. Mr. Henshall has simple answers to every challenge Japan (or any other country) might ever face. The solution to all political problems is to have as many political parties as possible, and to change the power coalitions as often as possible. (I just wonder how many political parties does he think there are in the beacons of democracy - the USA and UK.) The solution to all economical problems is to give the workers the right to go on strike whenever they please. And all international tensions would instantly vanish if Japan would properly apologize for World War II. Mr. Henshall gets outright ridiculous when he analyses Japan's various leaders' statements on WW2 and explains why one or another statement won't constitute a proper apology. Unsurprisingly, we'll also learn from this book that the US occupation troops were the very embodiment of niceness, and the Japanese people just fell in love with them.

Now, I want to make it clear that Mr. Henshall absolutely has the right to express his opinions. If he admires the thief gangs called political parties, the legalised mafia called trade unions, and the apology racket, it's his good right. However, what I, as a reader, most definitely do have the right to complain about, is the boring repetitiveness of the last third of the book. Mr. Henshall makes his political agenda very clear early enough, and from then on keeps repeating and repeating it ad nauseam. That is why on the last few dozen pages of the book, the reader must struggle hard to not fall asleep. I think that regardless of the reader's political opinions, the book would have been much more interesting if Mr. Henshall had kept his leftist sermons at moderate length, and used the room instead to describe earlier periods of Japanese history which, as I already said, are shamefully underrepresented in this book. Any way you slice it, dedicating 119 pages on the last 140 years and 68 pages on the previous thousands of years is grossly out of proportion.

Nonwithstanding anyone's right to his own opinion, I have to mention one statement in this book that I found just outrageous. Mr. Henshall criticises a certain form of teenage prostitution with the following words:
"One of the most worrying phenomena has been enjo kosai, or 'financially assisted relationships', in which young teenage girls willingly meet up - and often have sex - with older males, and get paid for it. While child prostitution is worrying enough in itself, [---], what is an additional worry here is that the girls themselves seem willing to sell their bodies, [---]."
I couldn't believe my eyes. Apparently, Mr. Henshall would find teenage prostitution less objectionable if the girls were forced to prostitute. Pardon me if I find it difficult to agree with that.

In spite of those flaws, this book is still a very good overview of the history of Japan.

A History of Japan
Well-written and with a good bibliography and glossary; but a very slim volume--under 200 pages of actual writing. No pictures and very few charts, etc to break up the text.

A useful starting point to explore Japan's history, but not a comprehensive history of the country.