History Textbook Recommendations?

[J. A. Crippen]

I'm interested in studying the history of Japan, entirely for fun and self-edification. Can anyone recommend good history textbooks? Obviously anything by E-Budo member Karl Friday is a probably good choice (and I already have the Hired Swords book of his). I'm really interested in general histories, but also in specifically martial ones.

There's lots of historical periods, of course. Primarily I care about the premodern periods, from the prehistorical through the Tokugawa shogunate. I'm not as concerned with the modern era, and in any case the modern era is much better documented and a little more boring.

Thanks.

[gmellis]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312233701/qid=1036567632/sr=1-56/ref=sr_1_56/002-2872125-4234425?v=glance

[Andy Watson]

Stephen Turnbull has written a whole plethora of books regarding Japanese history primarily focused on the samurai. Some of his books are a bit of a repeat of others but his writing appears to be extremely accurate.

Good hunting

[ScottNY]

I am also interested in Japanese history as a primary feild of study. When I took a class in Japanese History last year we used A HISTORY OF JAPAN by Conrad Totman. It is a pretty good book that is an over view of general Japanese history and it only costs about $35. You can fins it on amazon.com. There is also the Cambridge History of Japan. There are a few books in that collection, and each one is based on time period. There is pre-histoaric, Heian, Medeival, Pre-modern, and Modern volumes that I know of. They can also be found on amazon. They are quite expesive though at around $120 each. Hope this helps.

[Joseph Svinth]

There are a couple directions that you could go. One is to read hardcore academic material. If you're trying to stay current, use Google to take you to academic papers. Lots of this stuff is really dry, however.

The chief alternative is reading popular histories. These often repeat the same old lies in the same old ways, but for most people, that's all they wanted anyway.

As for specific recommendations, see if your library has a copy of Thomas A. Green (ed.), "Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia" (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001), and read the essays by Prof. Bodiford. First-rate stuff.

[PRehse]

Try for a good quick intro to Japanese history try

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/WORLD.HTM

Go to Contents and then Learning Moduls


It unfortuneately ends just before the Tokugawa Shoguns but still - very good.

[Menker]

Japan: A Short Cultural History (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804709548) by George B. Sansom

You can get a copy for as cheap as $4 over at Half.com (http://half.ebay.com/cat/buy/prod.cgi?cpid=1117330).

[TommyK]

Greetings,

The preceeding mention of Sansom's book is an excellent suggestion, as is his 3 volume set on the History of Japan, ALL available in paperback!

Regards,
TommyK