Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).I've read a lot of criticism of this book; Joshua Fogel went after it (the '1918 revolution' flub (203) didn't help), and others I've chatted with have complained that it's a 'history of history.' I personally thought it was fascinating, ( Read more... )

Stephen Vlastos, ed. Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).Finally - FINALLY - a book of the stripe I have been looking for: hithertofore, all the books promising discussion of 'myths' or 'invented traditions' have been sorely lacking. I'm still on the hunt for a volume that ( Read more... )