Book Review: Japan in World History

Time for a more lighthearted post.

Ever since I was young, I have had a fascination with Japan. It started as an interest in ninja turtles, then to ninjas, then to Samurai, which led to a research project on medieval Japan in elementary school. From there my enchantment with Japan manifested itself in a love of anime in highschool, then an interest in Japanese religion in my post-undergrad years, and this latest book has given me a much broader outlook on the country.

The theme of this historical series is “doing history from the vantage point of the moon”, so it’s a little dry in not going into details, and at times hard to follow because it pursues Japanese history according to time, rather than topics or themes. So when you read about medieval Japan, you skim everything about medieval Japan: economics, farm life, political developments, art, religion, etc. It’s abit overwhelming in the breadth of information each section throws at you. Particularly disappointing to me was the complete absence of discussions about ninjas.

So how can I sum up early Japanese history? Well, it’s remarkably similar to European history. Some people came, they farmed, they grew, governing structures arose, peasants were oppressed, rulers were assassinated, and out came a country. What distinguishes Japan from Europe? While the Japanese kept the same idiotic patterns of expansion and repression that Europe did, the Japanese did it with style. Assassinations had shuriken. ‘Nuff said.

Despite being behind the rest of the world in developing literacy, Japan produced the world’s first novel. They also took the idea of comics from the Americans, and turned them into Anime. They took the idea of the sword, and made it awesome in a way that hasn’t been surpassed. Monster movies came in, but they come out 400 feet taller and breathing nuclear fire. So one of my observations is that everyday stuff goes into Japan, but it comes out cool. I think I know a couple of people who could probably use a vacation to Japan.

What of recent Japanese history? How can that be summarized? In a nutshell, after an American Commodore named Matthew Perry opened up Japan to the rest of the world at gunpoint, an isolated people developed their identity and national pride around militarism, got big and strong, turned Fascist, got stabby and beat up their neighbours, then lost a giant war and got re-founded as a nation. After that, they resumed what came natural to them: being cool, and pissing off their neighbors by doing everything better than them. One of my favorite stories was the U.S. Congressman smashing a Toshiba radio in front of the Capitol out of bitterness for Japanese products out-selling American.

One thing the Japanese have imported but haven’t done much with, is karaoke. Some things I guess even the Japanese can’t fix.