Book cover of China and Japan: Facing History

Book description

A Financial Times "Summer Books" Selection

"Will become required reading."
-Times Literary Supplement

"Elegantly written...with a confidence that comes from decades of deep research on the topic, illustrating how influence and power have waxed and waned between the two countries."
-Rana Mitter, Financial Times

China and Japan have cultural and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked China and Japan as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Until his death in 2020 Ezra Vogel was Harvard’s preeminent scholar on East Asia, and the author of classics on both China and Japan. This book is special, however, because in it Vogel uses his mastery of both Chinese and Japanese histories and cultures to explain each to the other. He relates how each has contributed to the core identity of the other. For outsiders like myself, reading Vogel’s grand narrative of the interaction of China and Japan is a reminder of the complexities of national identity. Civilizations do clash, and certainly China and Japan have done so. But they…

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