Issue 5 (September 2006, Volume 1, Number 5)

September 2006 will be remembered as a historic month for Japan with the birth of the first male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne in 41 years and the election of a new prime minister to replace the flamboyant Junichiro Koizumi.

The focus of this issue of Japan Book Review also has a strong historic flavour with an excellent selection of new reviews. War diaries and memoirs form this issue's main theme, with several new books offering deep insights into people's wartime thinking and reasoning while powerfully chronicling the terrible human suffering of ordinary individuals during the period. We also review two books that analyze the propaganda and philosophy that underpinned the wartime military regime.

As usually, we also have a stimulating selection of reviews covering a broad spectrum of topics, this time ranging from Japan's rapidly expanding telecommunications sector to noteworthy Samurai battles, plus our new theatre review feature of major Japanese productions staged in the UK.

All of this is only a fraction of what you will find available on our website, which contains many more new reviews.

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