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EDITORIALS
Sep 20, 2013

Censorship by education boards

It is extremely regrettable that boards of education are actively censoring history textbooks that have been approved by the ministry of education.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 22, 2012

Fresh light on history books

POSTWAR HISTORY EDUCATION IN JAPAN AND THE GERMANYS: Guilty Lessons, by Julian Dierkes. Routledge, 2010, 224 pp., $130 (paper) The ways in which both Japanese and Germans remember and narrate the history of World War II have generated a vast literature in recent years. School education and textbooks...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2007

Let history judge Russia's revolutions

PRAGUE — A plethora of anniversaries is arriving in Russia. This fall marks the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 and the 25th anniversary of the death of Leonid Brezhnev. Next month will see the 15th anniversary of the Soviet Union's disintegration. Only by understanding that first...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2005

Japan-South Korea history panel may meet in January

The government is considering convening a second meeting of a joint Japanese-South Korean history study group in January, government sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2005

Suginami adopts contentious history text

The Suginami Ward board of education adopted a history textbook Friday that critics say distorts history and gives light treatment of Japan's wartime atrocities.
EDITORIALS
Aug 29, 2004

Rewriting history

The ancient kingdom of Koguryo, traditionally believed to have been founded in 37 B.C., ruled a vast region extending from Manchuria (northern provinces of China) to the Korean Peninsula until 668. Tumulus wall paintings in Nara, which was the capital of Japan in the 8th century, are said to reflect...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 1, 2018

Living and breathing history, through noh

Noh performer Hisa Uzawa has spent her life devoted to an art form that — with its slow and steady movements, sparse staging and ancient chanting — may at first seem staid. In her hands, however, the 650-year-old tradition becomes relentlessly contemporary.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jun 24, 2015

Story of Japan's industrial rise deserves to be told, forced labor and all

Proposed Kyushu UNESCO sites could be a showcase for East Asian cooperation or festering points of contention.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 25, 2015

History that's been brilliantly objectified

When "A History of the World in 100 Objects" aired its final episode on Oct. 22, 2010, millions of loyal listeners eagerly tuned in.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2007

Bilateral history text project tries to heal old scars

Can history textbooks jointly written by countries with pasts full of conflict serve as catalysts for reconciliation?
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2005

Textbook revisionists plan to diversify

Despite the marginal adoption of its contentious history textbook, which critics say whitewashes Japan's wartime aggression, the group that compiled the book said Friday it now plans to pen a junior high school geography textbook.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2001

Biased history helps feed U.S. fascination with Pearl Harbor

SAN FRANCISCO -- Why does America continue to nurture a deep preoccupation with Pearl Harbor, 60 years after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii? The makers of Disney's blockbuster $135 million film "Pearl Harbor" said the movie is primarily a love story, but its title, climax and cinematic...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2000

Blindness tips the scales of history

THE POSTWAR CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF ASIA: How the Political Right has Delayed Japan's Coming to Terms with its History of Aggression in Asia, by Yoshibumi Wakamiya. Tokyo: LTCB International Library Foundation, 1999, 370 pp. 3,000 yen, This study of Japan's dilatory and grudging attempts to come to terms...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 28, 2022

'Protect the truth': A Marcos return in Philippines triggers fear for history

Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr.'s presidency, set to begin on June 30, has many people worried about losing access to books and other accounts of his father's rule.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2019

The shackles of history in a democracy

The boundary between historical fact and fiction is more porous than students of history might think.
COMMENTARY / Japan / japan since the Meiji Restoration
Oct 22, 2018

Lessons from diplomatic and constitutional history

The 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration presents an opportunity to make a sweeping assessment of Japan's political and diplomatic trajectory over the ensuing years.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2018

The double helix of Chinese history and its powerful leader

After years of reform and a greater openness, authoritarianism dominant under President Xi.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Nov 21, 2016

Concerns grow after Trump ally cites Japanese-American internment as precedent for Muslim registry

One of the darkest periods in American history was thrown into stark relief in recent days after a surrogate to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said a proposal for a Muslim immigrant registry had precedent in the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 10, 2015

Saitama's 'Little Edo' is big on Japan's colorful history

As my smartphone clock flashes from 11:59 a.m. to 12 p.m., I watch the visitors to Kawagoe, in Saitama Prefecture wipe the sweat from their foreheads and direct their attention toward a more primitive form of time keeping — the Toki no Kane (Bell of Time) tower in the middle of the town square.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 13, 2015

Cultural historian James Vardaman reflects on his journey into Japanese publishing

Between two sips of coffee, Waseda University professor James M. Vardaman comes clean to me about his decades of addiction.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 6, 2015

Refusing to check out of the Hotel Okura

With the iconic landmark poised to close for renovation in August, we explore its significance to the development of modernist architecture in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 9, 2015

Academics fail Abe administration on history

On May 5, in an open letter in support of historians in Japan, an international group of 187 scholars (of which I am one) urged Japan to acknowledge and atone for the forced prostitution that occurred during wartime, stating: "Denying or trivializing" what happened to the "comfort women" is "unacceptable."...
COMMENTARY / World / NEW YEAR SPECIAL
Jan 1, 2014

History overshadows present and future Japan-China relations

Can Japan and China find a way to reduce the risk of conflict, and prevent continuing hostilities that could last decades? Can they peacefully coexist in the new era when they are both great powers?
An ukiyo-e print by Utagawa Kuniteru depicts the assault of Asano Naganori on Kira Yoshinaka, an incident that triggered the tragedy of the 47 Ronin and one that was re-created in the play “Chushingura.”
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Mar 8, 2024

Revenge: A dish seldom served in Japanese history but still cold as ice

When Confucius was asked, "Should we kill those who are evil?" The response came, "What need is there for you to kill?"
An exterior view of Qasr al-Basha in 2021 in Gaza City, where Napoleon Bonaparte slept for several nights during his campaign in Egypt and Palestine.
WORLD
Apr 15, 2024

Gaza's historic treasures saved by 'irony of history'

Invaluable artifacts remain intact thanks to the blockade that made life in the Gaza Strip such a struggle for the past 16 years.
Josh Rawitch, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, holds a baseball thrown by former Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo during a no-hitter in 1996 while seated next to a Dodgers uniform used by Shohei Ohtani this season during a news conference at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Tokyo
BASEBALL
Apr 19, 2024

Baseball Hall of Fame to highlight history of Japan-U.S. ties in new exhibition

The exhibition, "Yakyu/Baseball: The Transpacific Exchange of the Game between Japan and the United States," is slated to open in July 2025.
Indonesian President Prabowo delivers a speech during a May Day rally in Jakarta on May 1.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 19, 2025

In Indonesia, fears grow that new history books may rewrite dark past

The 10-volume series would have an Indonesia-centric narrative and aims "to reinvent the Indonesian identity," Culture Minister Fadli Zon said.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic