Possibly the best thing I've read about ChatGPT yet. h/t @melaniemitchell.bsky.social amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

Tōgō Shigenori’s wartime notebook (91 pages) has been deciphered by Katō Yōko-sensei and a former specialist at the National Archives of Japan. Entries from the outbreak of the war begin at the front; end-of-war records 373news.com/news/local/d...

【近刊】 波多野澄雄『日本終戦史1944-1945』中公新書、2025年7月 「大陸での日中戦争、真珠湾攻撃に始まる日米戦争、東南アジアでの日英戦争、原爆投下、敗戦前後の日ソ戦争。米英中ソとの複合戦争はいかに推移し、度重なる和平工作にもかかわらず、なぜ早期に終戦できなかったか。反対に本土決戦を目前に、なぜ「聖断」で終戦が可能となったか。新史料をふまえ、昭和天皇・近衛文麿・木戸幸一・鈴木貫太郎らの足跡を辿り、日本が対米和平を優先して大戦争を終結させた軌跡を巨細に描く」 @jeremyyellen.bsky.social www.hanmoto.com/bd/isbn/9784...

【近刊】 『外務官僚たちの大東亜共栄圏』新潮選書、2025年5月21日 「日露戦で満蒙権益を獲得した日本は、その維持を最重要課題として勢力拡張に舵を切る。だが国益追求に邁進する外務省は、次々と変化する情勢の中で誤算を重ね、窮地を打開するため無謀な秩序構想を練り上げていく。小村寿太郎から幣原喜重郎、重光葵まで、国際派エリートたちが陥った「失敗の本質」を外交史料から炙り出す」 @jeremyyellen.bsky.social www.shinchosha.co.jp/book/603926/

I was surprised and grateful to learn that the first (and a splendid) review of JAPAN AT WAR, 1914-1952, came out in the Chinese edition of The Economist. Yay! mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fN2gNtcsxb...

This is very exciting news! Selected parts of Operation Imphal - the Defense of Burma, Vol. 15 of the Senshi Sosho, has been translated into English. The free PDF can be found at the bottom of this article. www.spf.org/asia-islam/p...

Being able to drop a quarterly US GDP prediction by 5.1% from +2.3% to -2.8% in a single week is one of the most impressive economic developments in the history of the world.

This article is definitely worth your time.

Awesome thread on an event of critical importance in Japanese political and military history

先日に紹介した論集の目次(2/2)

先日に紹介した論集の目次(1/2)

@jeremyyellen.bsky.social www.utp.or.jp/book/b101075...

My daughter said one of her middle school teachers is always saying that “to be cringe is to be free” and damn if that ain’t a quality educator meeting these kids where they’re at and telling them something they really need to hear.

When satire feels both funny and also a little too close to reality for comfort... theonion.com/elon-musk-an...

This whole situation is absolutely insane, and here’s a good deep dive into why we should care about the consequences of DOGE’s actions foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/11/d...

NEW COLUMN: Tariffs on friends. Threats to invade allies. Freezing foreign aid. Ignoring Congress. Trump is the U.S. president China fantasizes about. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

MJHA is thrilled to announce that the 2025 Modern Japan History Association Book Prize has been awarded to Ryo Morimoto's book "Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima's Gray Zone"! @ucpress.bsky.social mjha.org/Book-Prize

Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox is so good!

My new book has arrived!

At the Nagoya Army Preparatory School in 1901, students from Ishikawa and Aichi Prefectures got into a fight over failure to give the proper greeting. One student was stabbed twice with a knife in the back of the head... For not giving a proper greeting? 😱 Both were expelled from the school

We are delighted to announce that MJHA's inaugural F. Hilary Conroy First Book Prize has been awarded to Hannah Gould (University of Melbourne) for her book "When Death Falls Apart: Making and Umaking the Necromaterial Traditions of Contemporary Japan"!

This is hilarious www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reminder! MJHA members, please vote by January 24.

Official ballots for the 2025 MJHA Distinguished Annual Lecturer are now available to MJHA members! Each MJHA member gets one vote and votes are anonymous. Vote here (member login required): mjha.org/Sys/Poll/58701

The arguments of historians are fun! Hasegawa (Racing the Enemy) accuses Frank (Downfall) of sourcing based partially on hearsay (Takeshita's diary), then immediately makes claims about the primacy Soviet entry based on hearsay of his own (Suzuki's supposed statement to his doctor)! Fun times!

I am rereading Japan's Longest Day for the first time in a long time, and find myself struck by the presentation of how Japan's leaders in the August 14, 1945 Imperial Conference regarded their sovereign after he restated his desire to terminate the war.

MJHA bilingual series is hosting another exciting book talk from Japan! (トークは日本語でどなたでも参加できます） January 17 (Friday): 9pm Japan Time. 出版帝国の戦争：不逞なものたちの文化史 The Publishing Empire at War: A Cultural History of Defiance Presenter: 高榮蘭 Discussant: Nayoung Aimee Kwon (Duke University) #MJHA #Japan

Picked this up on a whim in Nagoya last month, but am finding it really enjoyable!

A notebook kept by FM Togo records PM Tojo telling him in Nov. 1941 that he needn’t resign if negotiations fail & PM Suzuki's desire (8 Aug. 45) that the Soviets request the US stop using atomic bombs & Hirohito's belief the bomb made defense against invasion impossible. 373news.com/_news/storyi...

This is totally true.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Richard Frank had『本土決戦準備』(Hondo kessen junbi, preparations for homeland defense) and 『本土防空作戦』（Hondo bōkū sakusen, mainland air defense operations) translated for him when he wrote DOWNFALL. It may be worth reaching out, ‪@eugenpinak.bsky.social‬

His post-Presidency was much better, as many have noted, and nowhere better than on Israel/Palestine, where he was the first (and still only) President to state the obvious (and in 2007!) - that Israel was becoming an Apartheid state for Palestinians. www.simonandschuster.com/books/Palest...

The historian's job is to offer assessment, not hagiography. Carter was the most decent person to occupy the WH, and by far the best ex-President. But his foreign policy record was mixed, and in some places like East Timor his WH was an accomplice to genocide. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

During the Allied invasion of Sicily in World War II, General George S. Patton slapped a man with an apparent psychiatric condition for feigning illness, and later called men like that "cowards." The person he struck actually had malaria, but was misdiagnosed.

Wow. This review of Emily Wilson's celebrated translation of THE ILIAD doesn't hold back. It suggests the translation finds Homer’s warriors and their aspirations to glory contemptible, instead of "[honoring] Homer and his champions for who they are." claremontreviewofbooks.com/homer-withou...

Wonderful thread

The state of humanities funding in the US is shocking. For every $1000 the feds spend on research, humanities receive a $1.30 🤯 Of the ~$54 billion in research the federal govt funds in U.S. higher ed, only $69 million goes to the humanities (=0.13% of fed total) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

There are interesting parallels between the Brian Thompson killing and the assassination of Japanese former PM Abe Shinzo. Both killings highlighted corruption—in the Japanese case, it spotlighted the corruption of the Unification Church, and the killing led to a desire to dissolve the church…

Coca-Cola did not have as big an impact on Santa as is often claimed. More information here; fakehistoryhunter.net/2021/12/03/c...

Another nice article on this topic: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a...

I only learned today that Santa wears a red suit because in 1931, Coca-Cola began using him for an advertising campaign. Mind blown. Who taught me? As usual, my son.

I once had a professor ask “Why is there a Business section in the newspaper but not a Labor section?” My classmates and I probably rolled our eyes, but damned if I haven’t remembered that question every few days for 30 years now.

Happening now!!!!

For Gaijin Mommy: the OG.

My new book, JAPAN AT WAR, 1914-1952, is available for pre-order. It is a political history that highlights the centrality of war to the Japanese experience between World War I and World War II. www.routledge.com/Japan-at-War... There is currently a 25% off discount at Routledge!

Once again, I am amid the “what the hell am I trying to say, I don’t know what I’m talking about and I just have made a mistake in my choice of career” phase of writing.

I know I’m late to the game, but full text search within the National Diet Library’s digital sources is a real game changer, and makes research here sooooooo much smoother.

Our library has been worried about space constraints, and is increasingly purchasing e-books over physical copies. This… worries me.

My book, “Making Mao's Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism,” finally has a confirmed publication date—December 5, 2024. You can order it via Amazon. www.amazon.com/Making-Maos-...