Showing titles in Japan

Written in 1645 by legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings is a timeless treatise on strategy, discipline, and mastery. Drawing from a lifetime of undefeated duels and battlefield experience, Musashi distills his philosophy into five sections—Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void—each exploring a different dimension of combat and mindset.

**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)** **Kansas City Star Best Books of the Year (2013)** A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to...

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 is a seminal event in world history, yet it has been virtually ignored in Western literature. In the East, the focus of Chinese foreign policy has been to undo its results whereas the focus of Japanese foreign policy has been to confirm them. Japan supplanted...

The Japanese experience of war from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century presents a stunning example of the meteoric rise and shattering fall of a great power. As Japan modernized and became the one non-European great power, its leaders concluded that an empire on the Asian mainland...

A FINALIST FOR THE 2024 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE A Best Book of the Year in The Economist, Prospect, The Telegraph, TLS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Foreign Affairs 'Magisterial' – Max Hastings, The Sunday Times...

"War Crimes: Japans' World War II Atrocities" demands a prominent place in military history. Mr. Thurman and his daughter, Christine Sherman, bring to life the atrocities which the tribunal was formed to prosecute. War crimes remain a part of world history, and the world should know about them.

A joyous exploration of the cultural phenomenon that created Mario, Zelda and Pokémon, and an ode to our love of gaming, by one of the most trusted voices in video games writing. 'Among the best things ever written about Nintendo.' Tom Bissell , author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter From the instant classics to the hidden gems, Nintendo's video games occupy a special place in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people around the globe.

There are very few modern hobbies that can honestly claim they have lived three distinct lives. Most begin as a craze, settle into a niche, and then either fade or become quietly institutional. The Pokémon Trading Card Game did something stranger and more enduring. It began as a children’s pastime, became a cultural flashpoint that adults argued about in staff rooms and school assemblies, then returned decades later as a booming adult obsession with its own economy, celebrities, and mythology. That alone would make it worth studying.

We discover why appreciating the beauty of sakura, cherry blossom, allows for a moment to deeply experience a season through a single entity (Cherish). In the traditional tea ceremony, we see the importance of kiwameru, the Japanese word for achieving mastery or perfection (Perfect). In umami, we taste how something simple and delicious can nourish the heart (Savour). We explore why the things left unsaid, ma, are just as important as the words we say (Harmonise).

A sweeping narrative history -- the first in over twenty years -- of America's first major offensive of World War II, the brutal, no-quarter-given campaign to take Japanese-occupied Guadalcanal From early August until mid-November of 1942, US Marines, sailors, and pilots struggled for dominance...

In 1676, a ninja named Fujibayashi collected and combined information from the ninja clans of Iga—regarded to be the homeland of the ninja—and compiled it into an authoritative book. Known as The Bansenhukai, Fujibayashi's book has now been translated into English by the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team and is widely considered to be the "bible" of ninjutsu, the arts of the ninja.

In 1908, at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for 13 years in Peking’s Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi’s life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor.

With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.

Code of the Samurai is a 400-year-old explication of the rules and expectations embodied in Bushido, the Japanese Way of the Warrior. With a bright, conversational narrative by Thomas Cleary, this book is indispensable to corporate executives, students of Asian culture, martial artists, or anyone sincerely interested in Japan and its people.

This illuminating study explores the ways in which the shattering defeat of the Japanese in World War II, followed by over six years of American military occupation, affected every level of Japanese society. The author describes the countless ways in which the Japanese met the challenge of "starting over", from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes, fears, and activities of ordinary men and women in every walk of life.

In 17th century Japan, a masterless samurai with nothing but his sword and unwavering resolve defeated over sixty opponents in life-or-death duels. He died undefeated.

As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 'Sherman’s is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A stunning book, among the most immediate and thrilling works of history I have ever read’ At 8:15am on August 6th 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In an instant, the temperature at its core rose to millions of degrees...

This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."

Today we take it for granted that Japan is a forge of the world's fantasies: the birthplace of Transformers and Pokémon, of food trends like ramen and artisanal whisky and cutting-edge manga and anime. But it wasn't always this way. The first Japanese products that trickled into the global marketplace after the Second World War inspired derision, not admiration. The three words Made in Japan were a punchline, a synonym for cheap trinkets from a defeated nation.