A History of Modern Japan

'Lucid and lyrical...a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernisation.'- The Daily Telegraph

"Lucid and lyrical…a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernisation. One of the best accounts I've ever read on what happens--for better and worse--when a country's relationship with the world is abruptly renegotiated…will stand as a major survey in modern Japan." -- The Telegraph

"[Harding] has considerable talent as a storyteller--Most of all, he transforms his material into an ultra-progressive account of modern Japanese history…ushered to the front are those that the so-called patriarchy attempted to repress: the maverick women, socialist thinkers and doubters of the state version of modernity…enlivened at every turn with flashes of wit…an enormously readable book." -- The Japan Times

"Although the broad outlines of the story were familiar (as they will be to every reader) almost all the more detailed information was new to me. I thought the book was masterly in the intermeshing of the personal and the political, the quotidian and the spiritual, the psychoanalytic with the journalistic, the long-historical with the contemporary, and everywhere finding and highlighting the poetic and the aesthetic." -- Neil MacGregor Director of Humboldt Forum and former Director of The British Museum

Christopher Harding is a cultural historian of modern Japan, South Asia and the UK, and a Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh. He grew up in London before pursuing a B.A. in History, MSt. in Historical Research and PhD in South Asian History--all at Oxford. He lived and worked in Japan for three years through a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation scholarship. Christopher has written numerous articles for scholarly journals as well as for newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian , The New York Times , BBC History Magazine and History Today . He also appears regularly on radio and TV (BBC, ABC), presenting on a wide range of subjects such as religion, politics, culture and mental health. You can find out more about him at www.christopher-harding.com