The Human Tradition in Modern Japan illustrates the themes of 'big history' through the flesh-and-blood experiences of real people: a pop star, a feudal administrator, an Okinawan peasant-turned-official, a lesbian novelist, a princess, an economist, the mother of a prime minister. It beautifully enriches our understanding of Japan's last 350 years by humanizing, and thus complicating, it. The writing is ... Read morelively and accessible.
James L. Huffman, Wittenberg University This book will be a valuable supplementary text for introductory courses on modern Japan.
The Historian
This book demonstrates that by exploring the experiences of everyday Japanese we can often learn more about the history and peole of Japan than by concentrating on the powerful, wealthy, and influential. It is often in the lives of the ordinary that we glimpse the extraordinary. It is also here that we sense most clearly the ties that unite us all as human beings.
F. G. Notehelfer, University of California, Los Angeles A fascinating work that unearths the lives of twelve diverse men and women who lived in Japan between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. . . . Walthall has done an excellent job in unifying the twelve authorial voices into one, as each chapter flows effortlessly into the next. . . . One of the many strengths of this work is that most of the essays elucidate larger social, cultural, and political issues that transcend Japan. . . . By focusing on the rich texture of the collective human experience, The Human Tradition in Modern Japan becomes a book valuable not just to students of Japanese history but to all students of history.
Journal of World History
The Human Tradition in Modern Japan is a splendid antidote to those tedious tomes that perpetuate the myth of 'the Japanese' as a peculiarly homogenous, harmonious, and culture-bound people. These essays sparkle with individuality and personality, dreams and disappointments, the varied and unpredictable dramas of 'ordinary' lives and experiences.
John W. Dower, MIT, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II Show Less