Jeff Kingston - The Japan Times

May 19, 2024

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Jeff Kingston

Jeff Kingston lives in Tokyo, teaches history at Temple University Japan and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 1988. "Contemporary Japan" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) is his most recent book.

For Jeff Kingston's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Sep 28, 2003

Taisho Sophisticates

EXPLOITING PATENT RIGHTS AND A NEW CLIMATE FOR INNOVATION IN JAPAN, edited by Ruth Taplin. London: Intellectual Property Institute, 2003, 124 pp., £35 (paper). Intellectual property rights (IPR) is a hot issue in Japan. The government has implemented a series of related legal and institutional reforms...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Sep 14, 2003

From West to East: Ian Buruma casts his light on the making of modern Japan

INVENTING JAPAN: 1853-1964, by Ian Buruma. New York: The Modern Library, 2003, 194 pp., $19.95, (cloth). This is a satisfying hors d'oeuvre that awakens readers' intellects while whetting their appetite for more substantial fare. It is a quirky, opinionated and selective narrative redolent of what is...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 24, 2003

Should Japanese history be rewritten?

HARING THE BURDEN OF THE PAST: Legacies of War in Europe, America and Asia, edited by Andrew Horvat and Gebhard Hielscher. Tokyo: The Asia Foundation & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2003, 341 pp., 1,000 yen (paper). The legacies of war continue to dog Japan and are divisive at home and in Asia. Despite...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 29, 2003

Dishonesty in democracy

JAPAN'S DYSFUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACY: The Liberal Democratic Party and Structural Corruption, by Roger W. Bowen. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003, 139 pp. $21.95 (paper). JAPAN'S FAILED REVOLUTION: Koizumi and the Politics of Reform, by Aurelia George Mulgan. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2003, 139 pp. $36 (paper). During...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 8, 2003

Empowered by consumerism

THE NEW JAPANESE WOMAN: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, by Barbara Sato. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003, 241 pp., $19.95 (paper). Barbara Sato's excellent analysis of changes in gender discourse and women's identity in the 1920s recasts the landscape of 20th-century women's...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 1, 2003

Plagued by military politics

MILITARY POLITICS AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN INDONESIA, by Jun Honna. London: RoutedgeCurzon, 2003, 300 pp., $904 (cloth). With the collapse of a fragile ceasefire in Aceh, the Indonesian government has decided on a military solution to this long-festering problem. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has fought...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 25, 2003

Anthropology through the lens

GUNMA: Life and People. by Greg Davis. Tokyo: IPJ, 2002, 107 pp., 5,000 yen (cloth). Greg Davis had lived in Japan since 1970, working as a photojournalist throughout Asia. His sudden death on May 4 of liver cancer at the age of 54 is a major loss to his profession and those whose lives he touched all...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 11, 2003

Changes in consumer concerns

CONSUMER POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism, by Patricia Maclachlan. Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, 270 pp., $18.50 (cloth) This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 27, 2003

University exam pressure

JAPANESE HIGHER EDUCATION AS MYTH, by Brian J. McVeigh. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, 2002, 301 pp., $25.95 (cloth) In this withering critique, Japanese universities are portrayed as an educational Potemkin village. McVeigh's excellent analysis of institutional dysfunction focuses on how learning is sacrificed...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 23, 2003

Lawyers: they're not all out for themselves

HUMAN RIGHTS IN JAPAN, South Korea and Taiwan, by Ian Neary. London, Routledge, 2002, 297 pp., $95 (cloth) It's not easy being a lawyer these days -- putting up with nasty jokes, scant respect and widespread suspicions that the public interest is way down on the list of priorities. Ian Neary reminds...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 2, 2003

Modernization seen from the bottom up

A MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM TOKUGAWA TIMES TO THE PRESENT, by Andrew Gordon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 384 pp., $35 (cloth) In this superb book, by far the best in its genre, Andrew Gordon, director of the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, provides a...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 26, 2003

First, dump the zombie debtors

JAPANESE PHOENIX: The Long Road to Economic Revival, by Richard Katz. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, 2003, 351 pp., $24.95 (paper) As Japan limps further into a second decade of recession, optimists about its future economic prospects are thin on the ground. In this provocative and thoughtful study, Richard...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 29, 2002

Stymied by a myopic military

THE SHADOW WARRIORS OF NAKANO: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army's Elite Intelligence School, by Stephen C. Mercado. Brassey's: Washington, D.C., 2002, 331 pp., $27.95 (cloth) This is the groundbreaking story of Japan's World War II intelligence agents, an elite cadre of approximately 2,500 men...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 24, 2002

'Dewy-eyed' U.S. no match for Japan's samurai values

BAMBOOZLED! How America Loses the Intellectual Game with Japan and its Implications for Our Future in Asia, by Ivan P. Hall. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, New York, 2002, 324 pp., $26.95 (paper) For an enjoyable and stimulating read, one could do much worse than this thoughtful polemic on what ails bilateral...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Oct 27, 2002

The lesser of many possible evils

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC SINCE 1945, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002. 258 pp., $65 (cloth) This is a wide-ranging, ambitious and informative work on an immense subject. Given the vast terrain and limited space, Roger Buckley has had to resist the temptations...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 18, 2002

A monarchy for the masses

THE PEOPLE'S EMPEROR: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995, by Kenneth J. Ruoff. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Ma., 2001, 331 pp., $45 (cloth) This intriguing and rewarding monograph examines the manner in which the Emperor system has been reinvented in postwar Japan to reflect and reinforce...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 4, 2002

Reform by fiat and persuasion

INSIDE GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and its Legacy, by Eiji Takemae. London: Continuum, 2002, 751 pp., $40 (cloth) The U.S.-led Occupation of Japan ended 50 years ago, but still casts long shadows over the country and remains hotly debated among scholars and pundits. It is indeed fortunate, therefore,...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 14, 2002

An impassioned indictment of terror

SRI LANKA: The Arrogance of Power-Myths, Decadence and Murder, by Rajan Hoole. Colombo: University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), 2001, 504 pp., 8,000 rupees (cloth) During the nearly two decades of Sri Lanka's civil war, more than 60,000 people have died or disappeared, leaving behind wounded families...

CULTURE / Books

Jun 23, 2002

The courage to endure

BAD ELEMENTS: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing, by Ian Buruma. Random House: New York, 2001. 367 pp. $27.95 (cloth) Are the Chinese hard-wired for authoritarian government? Is there a cultural barrier to democracy? Ian Buruma spends more space than warranted in answering these questions with...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 9, 2002

The harbinger of a new era

JAPANESE RULES: Why the Japanese Needed Football and How They Got It, by Sebastian Moffett. London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2002, 207 pp., 10 pounds (paper) In elucidating the cultural context, symbolism and social implications of the world's most popular game as it has evolved from irrelevance to obsession...

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