35 Books about Japan

The Anatomy of Dependence is a 1971 book by Japanese psychoanalyst Takeo Doi, discussing at length Doi's concept of amae, which he describes as a uniquely Japanese need to be in good favor with, and be able to depend on, the people around oneself. He likens this to behaving childishly in the assumption that parents will indulge you, and claims that the ideal relationship is that of the parent–child, and all other relationships should strive for this degree of closeness.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan is a book written by Inazō Nitobe exploring the way of the samurai. It was published in 1899.

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture is a 1946 study of Japan by American anthropologist Ruth Benedict. It was written at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information, in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II by reference to a series of contradictions in traditional culture. The book was influential in shaping American ideas about Japanese culture during the occupation of Japan, and popularized the distinction between guilt cultures and shame cultures.

The Coming War with Japan is a book by geopolitical analyst George Friedman and Meredith LeBard, published in 1991, in which they argue that another conflict between the United States and Japan was inevitable as the latter was becoming an economic threat to the former. The Japanese title of the book literally translates as The Coming War with Japan: A 'Second Pacific War' is inevitable .

Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West is a 1999 book by Washington Post writer T.R. Reid.

Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan is a 2016 history book by Danny Orbach, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It deals with a variety of rebellions by the Imperial military though the 19th and early 20th century. It argues that a culture of disobedience and rebellion existed in the Japanese army, deriving from the tradition of the shishi, rebellious samurai active in the 1860s. It preserved itself and expanded over decades, due to political conditions, historical circumstances and the institutional development of the Imperial Japanese Army. It was fed by enduring leniency to right-wing rebels as long as their motives were "pure".

Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan (2018) is a book by historian Jennifer Dixon that discusses controversies around Japanese war crimes in World War II and the Armenian genocide denial in Turkey. According to Dixon, states tend to deny rather than glorify their past crimes due to international constraints.

Dilemma in Japan is a non-fiction book written by Andrew Roth during World War II, and it was first published in the United States in September 1945. In Dilemma In Japan, Andrew Roth warns of the threat of the Zaibatsu, and so-called "moderates" to post-war Japan. Roth describes how the Occupation should treat Hirohito, and cites Hirohito's war responsibility, and the need for him to be put on trial as a war criminal.

Embedded Racism: Japan’s Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination is a 2015 non-fiction book by Debito Arudou, published by Lexington Books.

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II is a history book written by John W. Dower and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1999. The book covers the difficult social, economic, cultural and political situation of Japan in the aftermath of World War II and the nation's occupation by the Allies between August 1945 and April 1952, delving into topics such as the administration of Douglas MacArthur, the Tokyo war crimes trials, Hirohito's controversial Humanity Declaration and the drafting of the new Constitution of Japan.

Fauna Japonica is a series of monographs on the zoology of Japan. It was the first book written in a European language (French) on the Japanese fauna, and published serially in five volumes between 1833 and 1850.

For Fukui's Sake is a 2011 travel book by Sam Baldwin that describes the experiences of living in Ono, Fukui prefecture, Japan, whilst working as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) on the JET Programme.

The Funny Little Woman is a book "retold by" Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent. Released by E. P. Dutton, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1973.

Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 is a book by Dennis Giangreco. It is about Operation Downfall, the proposed invasion of Imperial Japan during World War II.

Hellfire: The Story of Australia, Japan and the Prisoners of War is a history book written by Australian journalist and author Cameron Forbes published by Macmillan Publishers in 2005. It tells the stories of Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese during the Second World War, with particular focus on the Burma Railway.

How Japan Plans to Win is the English translation of The Three-Power Alliance and the United States-Japanese War, a work of current events by Kinoaki Matsuo, a Japanese Foreign Affairs Officer, Navy Admiralty Liaison, Navy strategizer, and member of the Black Dragon Society. The English translation was performed by Kilsoo Haan, a Korean anti-Japanese operative living in the United States. It was published in 1942 simultaneously in Boston by Little, Brown and Company and in London by George G. Harrap and Company. The book was reviewed in such publications as The New York Times and the Council on Foreign Relations journal, Foreign Affairs.

Illustrations of Japan is a book on Japanese culture by the Dutch merchant and diplomat Isaac Titsingh. The book was first published posthumously in French under the editorship of his friends Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat and Heinrich Julius von Klaproth in 1820, followed by an English edition in 1822 and a Dutch edition in 1824.

Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia is a 1988 book about robotics in Japan by Frederik L. Schodt. In 2011, it was also issued as an e-book for the Kindle, Nook, and iBookstore platforms, with a new cover designed by Raymond Larrett, added color photographs, and free-flowing, searchable text.

Japan's Imperial Conspiracy is a nonfiction historical work by David Bergamini. Its subject is the role of Japanese elites in promoting Japanese imperialism and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere; in particular, it examines the role of Crown Prince and Emperor Hirohito in the execution of Japan's Imperial conquest, and his role in postwar Japanese society.

The Japanese in Latin America is a 2004 book published by the University of Illinois Press about Japanese Latin Americans. The author is Daniel Masterson, while Sayaka Funada-Classen gave research assistance related to the Japanese language. The book discusses all of the major Japanese populations in Latin America and some other groups of Japanese diaspora who are not as well known. The Japanese populations of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay in South America, Cuba and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico are all discussed in this book.

Japanese Society (1970) is an analysis of the structure of Japanese society, written by Nakane Chie. The main theme of the book is the working of what Nakane calls "the vertical principle" in Japanese society, which is a series of social relations between two individuals, one of whom is senior and one of whom is junior.

Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa is a 2004 documentary television series and book by American documentary filmmaker and travel author Karin Muller, who spent a year in Japan searching for wa, the Japanese concept of harmony.

June 30th, June 30th is a poetry collection published in 1978 by American writer Richard Brautigan. It was his eighth book of poetry and the last released in his lifetime. It contains 77 poems that Brautigan wrote in 1976 during his seven-week stay in Japan, presented in a diary-like format. The title is the date he planned to leave the country.

The Kamikaze Hunters: Fighting for the Pacific, 1945 is a 2015 book by Will Iredale. It deals with the actions of the Fleet Air Arm of Great Britain's Royal Navy during 1945, in the final stages of World War II in the Pacific theater.

Keeling's Guide to Japan was a tourist guidebook published in several editions during the 19th century by the Yokohama-based firm, A. Farsari & Co.

Lost Japan is a 1993 book written by American Japonologist Alex Kerr.

New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan (ISBN 978-0804744621) is a 2002 academic book edited by Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, James A. Hirabayashi, and Akemi Kikumura-Yano and published by the Stanford University Press. The volume, edited by three Japanese American anthropologists, was produced by the Japanese American National Museum's International Nikkei Research Project. The same project produced the Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas: An Illustrated History of the Nikkei, and the two books are companion volumes.

Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne (ISBN 1585425680) is a controversial 2006 book by Australian investigative journalist Ben Hills. Billed as "The Tragic True Story of Japan's Crown Princess", the book drew criticism from the Imperial Household Agency and the government of Japan over its supposed inaccuracies, and Hills' claims to have received death threats. The English version was released in Japan in September 2007.

The Roads to Sata, written in 1985 by Alan Booth, tells the story of his journey in 1977, on foot, from Cape Sōya in Hokkaidō, the northernmost point of Japan, to Sata, the southernmost point of the main islands of Japan. Booth's journey lasted 128 days and covered 2,000 miles. The book was originally published by John Weatherhill Inc in 1985, but was republished by Kodansha Globe in 1997 in paperback.

Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation is a 1994 book by Karl Taro Greenfeld. A collection of nonfiction short stories about Japanese youth during the early years of Japan's Lost Decade, Speed Tribes was widely reviewed in international media.

Travelers of a Hundred Ages is a nonfiction work on the literary form of Japanese diaries by Donald Keene, who writes in his Introduction that he was introduced to Japanese diaries during his work as a translator for the United States in World War II when he was assigned to translate captured diaries of soldiers; he found them moving enough that he continued to study that genre. Keene's book takes the form of self-contained long chapters that deal with a single diary, each of which is valuable in its own right as a literary work This treatment is especially apparent when Keene writes of Matsuo Bashō's travel diaries, such as The Narrow Road to the North, or provides a window into an author's life, such as in the case of Fujiwara no Teika's Meigetsuki.

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is a book by the English travel writer Isabella Bird, in the form of letters to her sister, describing her journey from Tokyo to Hokkaido in 1878, when she was 47. It was first published in two volumes in 1880 by John Murray, which later issued an abridged one-volume version in 1885.

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The book is made up of a series of interviews with individuals who were affected by the attacks, and the English translation also includes interviews with members of Aum, the religious cult responsible for the attacks. Murakami hoped that through these interviews, he could capture a side of the attacks which the sensationalist Japanese media had ignored—the way it had affected average citizens. The interviews were conducted over nearly a year, starting in January 1996 and ending in December of that same year.

Warriors of Legend is a series of books that are to be published by Genvid L.L.C. The first book in the series, Warriors of Legend: Reflections of Japan in Sailor Moon (Unauthorized) is the only book published so far.

Wrong about Japan is a 2005 book by Peter Carey. It is subtitled A Father's Journey with his Son.