Editor’s Note: There are a number of “basic” resources/reference books that will be extremely useful for teachers’ reference teaching about Japan, and are often referred to in lessons. These include college level textbooks, anthologies, and collections of primary sources. This bibliography is a compilation of some of the most widely used works in each category. We strongly encourage you to purchase at least one of the textbooks and one of the document collections for your own reference.  We also encourage discussion regarding the usefulness of these books, and suggestions of other useful basic resources.

 

Duus, Peter. Modern Japan. 2^nd ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

 

Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: Tokugawa Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

 

McClain, James L. Japan: A Modern History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.

 

Pyle, Kenneth B. The Making of Modern Japan. 2^nd ed. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1996.

 

Totman, Conrad. History of Japan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 

 

Varley, H. Paul. Japanese Culture. 4^th ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.

 

de Bary, William Theodore, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, H. Paul Varley (eds.) Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume One: From Earliest Times to 1600, 2^nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

 

de Bary, William Theodore, Carol Gluck, Arthur E. Tiedemann, eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume Two: 1600 to 2000. 2^nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

 

Lu, David J., ed. Japan: A Documentary History. East Gate Books, 1996.

 

Hibbett, Howard (ed).  Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film, and other Writing Since 1945.  Cheng & Tsui, 2005.

 

Keene, Donald (ed).  Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era trhough the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Grove Press, 1994.

 

Keene, Donald (ed).  Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day. Grove Press, 1994.

 

Rimer, J. Thomas and Van C. Gessel (eds.)  The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

 

Rimer, J. Thomas and Van C. Gessel (eds.)  The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

 

Shirane, Haruo (ed). Early Moden Japanese Literature: An Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

 

Shirane, Haruo (ed).  Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology: Beginnings to 1600. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.