In "The Making of Urban Japan," professor Andre Sorensen explains the genesis of modern Japanese cities, from bustling stations to intimate alleyways. Published in 2002, while he was a lecturer at the University of Tokyo, it remains the best introduction to Japanese urban planning ...

May 15 will mark the 45th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control, again reminding us of how drastically the U.S.-Japan relationship has changed over the years. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975, by Chalmers Johnson.409 pages STANFORD UNIVERSITY ...

At dusk, the bars and restaurants that crowd the underside of the tracks at Yurakucho Station come alive. Lanterns flicker on, sign boards are propped up on the sidewalk, and charcoal grills are lit. The patrons stream in from every direction. Dark-suited professionals arrive from the ...

"Edo and Paris" compares the development of these two great cities of the early modern era. It compiles 19 essays by American, European and Japanese academics, edited by James L. McClain, John M. Merriman and Kaoru Ugawa, professors of history at Brown, Yale and ...

Kiyonori Kikutake (1928-2011) was a leading Japanese architect of the postwar period and is best known for his central role in metabolism, the avant-garde architectural movement. "Kiyonori Kikutake: Between Land and Sea" disentangles Kikutake from the legacy of metabolism and provides new perspectives on ...

A common perception abroad is that Japanese society is docile. This is partly thanks to Western writers who tried to create a single profile of the Japanese in the early to mid-20th century, such as Ruth Benedict in her 1946 book "The Chrysanthemum and ...

In "One Hundred Million Philosophers," Historian Adam Bronson profiles "one of the longest lasting and most influential intellectual groups" of the postwar era: Science of Thought (Shiso no Kagaku). He focuses on the tumultuous period between its founding in 1946 and the 1960 Anpo ...

In "Japan-ness in Architecture," architect and theorist Arata Isozaki chronicles the search for a Japanese identity through design. Isozaki begins by outlining Japan's architectural discourse in the 20th century, in which he played a key role. He writes honestly about his contemporaries who grappled ...

In "As We Saw Them," literary critic and academic Masao Miyoshi looks at the 1860 Japanese embassy to the United States, the first sent to a Western power after centuries of seclusion. As We Saw Them, by Masao Miyoshi243 ...

"Neighborhood Tokyo" is a portrait of an average Tokyo neighborhood in Shinagawa Ward where Harvard Anthropologist Theodore Bestor did fieldwork from the late 1970s to early '80s. Though the book is a rigorous study of social life, Bestor's wit and candor open it up ...