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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2007

Legislating history obscures the truth

NEW YORK — In October, the Spanish Parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2007

Listening to history's creaking bones

ORACLE BONES: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, by Peter Hessler. HarperCollins, 2006, 491 pp., $26.95 (cloth) Beside their obvious antiquity, why should heaps of cattle shoulder-blades and turtle shells dating from the 13th and 14th centuries B.C. be of such immense importance to today's...
Reader Mail
Apr 29, 2007

U.S. squarely faces its history

In regard to the letter submitted by Setsuko Tokita, although it is true that there was a long history of African slavery in the United States, the U.S. government finally put an end to slavery once and for all during the bloodiest conflict in American history, the Civil War. However, the institution...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 13, 2006

Arguing over history, memory and politics

THE MAKING OF THE "RAPE OF NANKING": History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States, by Takashi Yoshida. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 265 pp., $55 (cloth). Since Iris Chang published "The Rape of Nanking" (1997), the Japanese have taken a beating about their alleged collective amnesia...
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2006

A power to resist the currents of history

One cold morning in December 1941, I was running through the frozen streets of Tokyo during the predawn hours, delivering newspapers. I saw this as my way to contribute to the family finances. I was 13 at the time, my father was bedridden with rheumatism, and my four elder brothers had been sent off...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2005

Eastern Europe in the Far East

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia For generations of expatri ates in the days before jet travel, the first stop on the journey back to Europe from Japan was Vladivostok, Russia's easternmost city and the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2005

Koizumi urges calm in history text row

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged South Korea on Tuesday not to let soured bilateral relations deteriorate further, following the approval of junior high school history textbooks that Seoul says distort Japan's colonialist past.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 4, 2002

Finding a place in history

SENTO AT SIXTH AND MAIN: Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American Heritage, by Gail Dubrow with Donna Graves. Seattle: Seattle Arts Commission, 2002, 220 pp., $19.95 (paper) A lumber camp in Selleck, Washington; a sento at 302 Sixth Avenue in downtown Seattle; a bowling alley in Los Angeles's Crenshaw...
JAPAN
May 25, 2002

Tokyo-Seoul panel on history ready to meet for first time

Japan and South Korea will hold the inaugural meeting of their joint history research committee Saturday in Seoul to promote better mutual understanding of history among scholars, Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2002

Tokyo-Seoul history panel holds first meeting

A Japan-South Korea panel tasked with selecting members for and supporting the activities of a planned joint history research committee held its first meeting Monday afternoon in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2002

Tokyo-Seoul history panel sets date for talks

A Japan-South Korea panel created to lay the groundwork for a planned joint history research committee will hold its first meeting April 15 in Tokyo, Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2000

Western policies ignore Serbia's history

Japan can be criticized for its simplistic, one-track mind at times. But over problems like Yugoslavia, the one-tracked Western mind, hardened by ideology and moralistic bias, can do far more harm.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 3, 2000

The making of alternative history

The xich lo (cyclo) is as ubiquitous in Vietnam as the tuk tuk is in Thailand, but completely man-powered: The driver peddles the vehicle behind the comfortably seated passenger. It is currently an important mode of transportation on Vietnam's streets, as well as a livelihood for countless drivers, and...
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, attend a document signing ceremony during the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia, in October 2019.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2023

China’s weaponization of race and history

BRICS nations seek a more equitable global architecture that represents the interests of the Global South as China uses race to challenge the West.
Twitter's new X logo at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California, on July 29
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 31, 2023

Elon Musk's X to collect biometric data, work and school history

It’s unclear how X will collect the data or how it may be used.
Harvard historian Calder Walton says U.S. leaders have ignored China’s massive, multifront intelligence push.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2023

The vulnerability of open societies to foreign espionage

Are Western nations, with their open societies, making the same mistake with China as they did with the Soviet Union?
Starting next year, all renovations to the new Imperial Hotel are scheduled to finish in 2036.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 16, 2023

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel enters the history books

The curtain is about to close on Frank Lloyd Wright’s contribution to Tokyo’s skyline.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Sep 16, 2023

Rugby turns 200: A history of the sport in Japan

As the sport of rugby turns 200, Japan hopes to celebrate its own success in a game that first arrived in the 1860s.
Ryo Kase (top center) gives an audacious performance as warlord Oda Nobunaga in “Kubi.”
CULTURE
Nov 23, 2023

Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Kubi’ cuts great men of history down to size

The blood-drenched period epic offers a queer retelling of the 1582 Honnoji Incident with a ruthless and sadistic Oda Nobunaga at its center.
A look into what used to be the Koyamacho neighborhood in Tokyo's Minato Ward may reveal what Japan stands to lose from not protecting its recent past.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Dec 25, 2023

Mita facelift paves over another slice of Tokyo history

The death of Koyamacho shows that Japan needs to begin preserving some parts of its modern history for future generations.
Oilers center Ryan McLeod celebrates his goal with teammates during the team's Game 6 win over the Florida Panthers on Friday in Edmonton, Alberta.
MORE SPORTS / Ice Hockey
Jun 23, 2024

In trying to make history, the Edmonton Oilers will be battling it

In defeating the Florida Panthers 5-1 on Friday, the Oilers became just the third team to even force a Game 7 after being down 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Final.
A tunnel inside the Sado Island Gold Mines in Sado, Niigata Prefecture
JAPAN / History
Jul 27, 2024

Japan's Sado gold mines added to World Heritage list

The site is associated with Korean wartime labor and was once the world's largest gold mine complex.
South Korean Ambassador to Japan Yun Duk-min is interviewed in Tokyo on July 19.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 4, 2024

South Korea's outgoing envoy pushes for joint declaration on history recognition

Yun Duk-min reiterated that a declaration could be announced in 2025 to mark the 60th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties.
Giant figures depicting Russian authors Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Daniil Kharms and Fyodor Dostoyevsky are paraded through a carnival in central Moscow in September 2015.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2024

When art is all that remains

Looking at the Kremlin today, one wonders, “Do they really now know how this story ends?” Art will always have the last word.
It’s easy to forget that not too long ago, the horse was crucial to the way wars were fought and daily life was lived, echoing today’s reliance on semiconductors.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2025

A history of globalization on horseback

The animal has been part of Western imagination since Paleolithic humans painted the Lascaux caves around 20,000 years ago.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hits a solo home run in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. The Yankees went deep on the first three pitches of the game, an MLB first.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 30, 2025

Yankees make MLB history with homers on first three pitches

Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge each smacked a homer off the first offering each saw from Milwaukee pitcher Nestor Corales, a former Yankee.

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