Table of Contents

A SHORT HISTORY OF JAPAN

1 Introduction

2 In the beginning

The geographical setting

Japanese mythology

The archaeological record

The Yamamoto Court - the first Japanese state

The Nara period (710-784)

The Heian period (794-1185)

3 Chaos to unity: Feudalism in Japan

The rise of the military - the Kamakura Bakufu (1185-1333)

The Hojo period

The Muromachi period (1336-1467)

The Sengoku period - the Age of Warring States (1467-1568)

The Momoyama period (1573-1603)

The Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868)

4 Modernisation and Imperialism

The Meiji restoration (1868-1912)

The road to war

5 War and peace

Prelude to war (1937-41)

The Pacific war (1941-45)

Occupation and resurrection (1945-52)

6 The miracle economy

The 1950s

The 1960s

7 Japan as number one?

8 Bursting bubbles

The end of the bubble ec

Promotional Information

Shortlisted: 2003 'The Australian' Awards For Excellence in Educational Publishing. Category: Tertiary Education (wholly Australian) - Book Series (entered with China/SE Asia & Laos).

About the Author

Curtis Andressen is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University, South Australia. He has been a willing student of Japan for over two decades and has spent several years living there. Curtis Andressen has published widely on a variety of aspects of contemporary Japanese Society. Milton Osborne has had an association with the Asian region for over 40 years as an academic, public servant and independent writer. He is the author of eight books on Asian topics, including Southeast Asia: An introductory history, first published in 1979 and now in its eighth edition, and, most recently, The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future, published in 2000.