Buruma, Ian

Inventing Japan 1853-1964

ISBN: 9780679640851
New York, NY, USA: Modern Library, 2003. First Edition. Hardcover. “In a single short book as elegant as it is wise, Ian Buruma makes sense of the most fateful span of Japan’s history, the period that saw as dramatic a transformation as any country has ever known. In the course of little more than a hundred years from the day Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in his black ships, this insular, preindustrial realm mutated into an expansive military dictatorship that essentially supplanted the British, French, Dutch, and American empires in Asia before plunging to utter ruin, eventually emerging under American tutelage as a pseudo-Western-style democracy and economic dynamo.” (from front flap). Ian Buruma (b. 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. Born and raised in The Hague, Netherlands Buruma got his undergraduate degree in Chinese Literature and History from Leiden University in 1971. Supremely interested in Asian culture, history and politics, he would go on to pursue postgraduate studies in Japanese cinema from 1975 to 1977 at the College of Art (Nichidai Geijutsu Gakko) of the Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan. During his studies in Japan, Buruma was a documentary filmmaker (roughly from 1975 to 1981), he’d then go on to be a main editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong for the rest of the 1980’s. Eventually, he would wander Asia as a freelance writer, where he contributed a number of articles to publications such as The New York Review of Books and The Guardian. Throughout this literary odyssey, Buruma also went on to publish a number of non-fiction works particularly focused on Asian culture and politics. Offered here today is one such work. Inventing Japan: 1853–1964 is a work in which Buruma examines the political and industrial development of Japan from the Meiji Period (1868–1912) to the 1960’s as the nation reeled back from the void that the second World War had left. Written with clarity, first-class scholarship, and deep insight Inventing Japan is a work that any scholar of pre or post World War Japan must read! Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket. First edition though not explicated as such at copyright page, first printing as indicated by number sequence thereon. Book is in very fine condition with minimal wear to fine edges; dust jacket is in very fine condition with minor smudging to front and back covers. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #6562]

Price: $75.00