The Japan Society Review

Review by: Susan Meehan. Talking about The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn at the Oriental Club in London on 24 October 2011, its author, Roger Pulvers, gave a measured account of Lafcadio Hearn, crediting him for his incredibly well-written yet fairly unknown journalistic work carried out mainly in the USA, his extraordinary insights into Japan and […]

Review by : Sir Hugh Cortazzi. This copiously illustrated book has been produced to mark 150 years of friendship between Germany and Japan. Dr. Volker Stanzel, the German ambassador in Tokyo, in his message at the beginning notes that many of the materials collected in this book were long presumed to have been lost. His […]

Review by Fumiko Halloran. Strong Arm Restoration (Gowan Ishin) is a collection of newspaper columns written by Ichiro Ozawa that first appeared in the Evening Fuji [夕刊フジ] newspaper between 2003 and 2006. His weekly column touches on politics, the economy, foreign policy, education, and crime. As for the book’s title, “Strong Arm” [剛腕] is an […]

By Takashi Oka, Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies, 2011, 210 pages, £85.00, ISBN-10: 0415587522 and ISBN-13: 978-0415587525. Review by Sean Curtin. Love him or loathe him, but you certainly cannot ignore Ichiro Ozawa, one of Japan’s most enduring and influential politicians of the last few decades. Takashi Ota, veteran journalist and former Ozawa aid, has produced […]

By Ichiro Ozawa [小沢一郎], Kodansha[講談社], May 1993 (23rd printing as of May 2006), 258 pages, 1500 yen, ISBN-10: 4062064820 and ISBN-13: 978-4062064828. Review by Fumiko Halloran. Ichiro Ozawa is a controversial figure with great political skills and strong leadership ability. He once presided over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as its powerful Secretary General whose […]

By Kiyofumi Kato [加藤 聖文,], Kodansha [講談社], November 2006, 266 pages, 1600 yen, ISBN-10: 4062583747. Review by Fumiko Halloran. The year 2006 was the 100th anniversary of the establishment of “Mantetsu” [満鉄], or “Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki-kaisha,” [南満州鉄道株式会社], in English the Southern Manchurian Railways Company, a semi-public corporation that was far more than a railway […]

By Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams, Century, (Random House Group), 2006, 314 pages including notes and acknowledgements, £12.99, ISBN 9781844138203 and ISBN 184413820. Review by Sean Curtin. The central focus of this well written, moving and excellently researched book is the decades-long relationship between a British Army officer, Captain Arthur Hart Synnot, and a Japanese […]

By Toshio Kurihara [栗原 俊雄], Iwanami Shinsho [岩波新書], 2009, 211 pages, 735 yen, ISBN-10: 4004312078. Review by Fumiko Halloran. On 9 August 1945, six days before Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces in World War II, the Soviet Army began a massive attack on Japan’s Kwantung Army [関東軍] in Manchuria [満州国] in northeast China. Some […]

By A. Robert Lee with line compositions in colour by Yuriko Yamamoto, Renaissance Books, Folkestone, 2011, 214 pages including glossary, £16.00, ISBN 978-1-89823-06-3. Review for the Japan Society by Sir Hugh Cortazzi. This is a fun book containing amusing vignettes. Readers who have lived in the Tokyo suburbs and commuted daily on one of the […]

Edited by McKinsey & Company (Executive editors: Clay Chandler, Heang Chhor, and Brian Salsberg), VIZ Media, LLC, San Francisco, 2011, 448 pages including a large number of photographs, US$38.99, ISBN 13:978-1-4215-4086-3 and ISBN10: 1-4215-4086-X. Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi. This book brings together essays about Japan and its future by almost ninety different authors.