Research Guides: East Asian Studies: HIST-UA 401

Asia as Method: Japanese Political Thought, HIST-UA 401 (Prof. Linkhoeva)

This library guide is for use with capstone seminar - course #HIST-UA 401 and is based on the syllabus, "Asia as Method: Japanese Political Thought," provided by Dr. Tatiana Linkhoeva

sample search terms:
"Asia," "Japan," "The West," "modernization," "modernity," "postmodern", "imperialism," "The Asia-Pacific War," "Total War," "Cold War," "fukoku kyōhei" (rich nation, strong army / 富國強兵), "bunmei kaika" (civilization and enlightenment / 文明開化), "kyōdōtai" (village community / 共同体), "Marxism," "Meiji Ishin" (Meiji Restoration / 明治維新), "nationalism"

Recommended overviews of Japanese history with library call numbers:
Peter Duus, Modern Japan (Houghton Mifflin, 1998) call number: Main Collection DS881.9 .D87 1998

Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present (Oxford, 2013)
2020 call number: in process Main Collection DS881.9 .G66 2020
2014 call number: Main Collection DS881.9 .G66 2014
2009 call number: Main Collection DS881.9 .G66 2009
2003 call number: Main Collection DS881.9 .G66 2003

Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Westview, 1986)
2018 online: Ebook
2013 print call number: Main Collection DS881 .H36 2013
2013 online: Ebook
2009 call number: Main Collection DS881 .H36 2009
2001 call number: Main Collection DS881 .H36 2001
1992 call number: TNS Restricted / Internet Resources DS881 / Electronic access
1992 print call number: OFFSITE Main Collection DS881 .H36 1992
1986 call number Main Collection DS881 .H36 1986

Marius Jansen, The Emergence of Modern Japan (Harvard, 2000) Not at NYU
1995 print call number: book on order DS835.E44 1995, please check back

Janet Hunter, The Emergence of Modern Japan (Longman, 1989) call number: Main Collection DS881.9 .H87 1989

Library Catalogs

To find out what we have at NYU, search the NYU LIBRARY CATALOG : https://search.library.nyu.edu

To find out what is available elsewhere (and then you can request through Interlibrary Loan or EZBorrow), search these

WorldCat - FirstSearch (OCLC) This link opens in a new window
Search for books and more in libraries in the U.S. and around the world. Indicates when NYU libraries holds a copy of a book and shows you nearby libraries with holdings. Great for searching books in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean scripts and for getting information to request through Interlibrary Loan.
WorldCat.org This link opens in a new window
Free version of WorldCat. Search for books and more in libraries in the U.S. and around the world.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a central search for scholarly literature. It covers disciplines and sources, peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

Reference

JapanKnowledge (contains the Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan) This link opens in a new window
JapanKnowledge (ジャパンナレッジ) provides access to electronic versions of major dictionaries and encyclopedias - essential Japanese reference sources, as well as databases for some weekly journals and maps published in Japan. These include Nihon daihyakka zensho (日本大百科全書), Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (講談社), Gendai yōgo no kiso chishiki (現代用語の基礎知識), and others. It contains full text of the journal, Ekonomisuto (Weekly Economist, 週刊エコノミスト), from 2015-present. It also contains the Tōyō bunko (東洋文庫）.
Use Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (講談社) for English language searching.
Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Oxford Bibliographies presents constantly updated articles that contain citations (with annotations) and commentaries for sources across the disciplines. Users can search topics and gather relevant journal article and book citations, online resources, data sources, and more.
Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new window
The Oxford Research Encyclopedias (OREs) offer long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars. Each of the twenty-five distinct encyclopedias cover both foundational and cutting-edge topics in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
We are currently working on resolving PDF viewing and download issues on this platform.

Cambridge Histories Online: https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU02236

for Japan

Vol. 5 The Nineteenth Century: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-japan/F303B097A21517248B67434CF5A34F9C

Vol. 6 The Twentieth Century: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-japan/4D00F02EF55AC774AD0F5BD8D1887BD4

WWWJDIC: Japanese-English language online dictionary, created by Jim Breen
http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?1C

Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History by Janet E. Hunter
ISBN: 0520043901
Publication Date: 1984-01-01
This is a concise, reliable guide to the people, places, events, and ideas of significance from the Meiji Restoration to the present.
call number: NYU Bobst 1st Floor Reference (DS881.9 .H86 1984 Non-circulating )

Books with Excellent Bibliographies

Modern Japan by Mikiso Hane
ISBN: 9780429963520
Publication Date: 2018-03-09
Integrating political events with cultural, economic, and intellectual movements, Modern Japan provides a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history. A summary of Japan's early history, emphasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present. The fifth edition of Modern Japan is updated throughout to include the latest information on Japan's international relations, including secret diplomatic correspondence recently disclosed on WikiLeaks. This edition brings Japanese history up to date in the post 9/11 era, detailing current issues such as: the impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations, the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear accident, the recent tumultuous change of political leadership, and Japan's current economic and global status. An updated chronological chart, list of prime ministers, and bibliography are also included. Bibliography - pages 540-582

Useful Databases for Finding Journal Articles about Asia and Japan

Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
The online version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) contains records on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide and in Western languages.
EBSCO Discovery Service This link opens in a new window
EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) encompasses articles in databases across many disciplines. Users can locate peer reviewed articles, videos, audio files, images, and more from a range of subjects. Try searching multiple terms like "Japan" "Asia" "political thought" "modernization" and others. Limit to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. EBSCO is leaving NYU Library in June 2025.
Note: NYU Libraries is retiring EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) in June 2025. The Catalog Search replaces EDS as the tool for searching across multiple publishers’ databases and platforms. You can also use EBSCOhost to search across the full set of EBSCO-only databases.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Indexes more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1955 to present.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to journal articles, users can access book chapters, ebooks, and primary source documents.
MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The MLA International Bibliography provides bibliographic records for books, book chapters, journal articles, and dissertations published in the fields of modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Full text is available for some articles. The MLAIB covers items published from around 1920 to the present.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
GenderWatch indexes scholarly, radical, community, and independent publications from 1970 to present relevant to gender, women's, and LGBTQ studies. It provides information from both academic and grassroots perspectives on a wide range of gender-related topics, such as sexuality, family, religion, societal roles, race and ethnicity, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace. Notable titles include Off Our Backs, Transgender Tapestry, Sister Namibia, and Out and About, among others.
Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Dissertations and Theses Global contains indexes, dissertations and some theses. Full-text is available for many dissertations and theses, including those from NYU.

Japanese Newspapers (with English access) at NYU

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Access World News provides the html full text articles and transcripts from a variety of national and international news sources, including newspapers, digital-native news websites, television and radio transcripts, blogs, college and university newspapers, journals, magazines, and some audio and video. Most international titles are English language. Dates of coverage vary from title to title, but primarily span the late 20th century to present.
Click Asia, and then use Japan for a keyword to select Japanese newspapers. There are 7 newspapers listed for Japan:
Economy, Culture & History Japan Spotlight
Japan Economic Foundation
Japan News, The
Japan Times, The
Japan Times: Web Edition Articles
JCN Network
Kyodo News International, Inc.
Asahi Shimbun Cross Search This link opens in a new window
Kikuzo II Visual (Asahi Shinbun, 聞蔵Ⅱビジュアル, 朝日新聞記事データベース) is a newspaper database for Asahi shinbun containing articles published from 1879 to the present. Also includes articles from the weekly magazines Aera as well as Shūkan Asahi, from the annual new-word dictionary Chiezō, Asahi shinbun jinbutsu dētabēsu, and Asahi shinbun rekishi shashin ākaibu.
This is a Japanese newspaper, but if you click on Tab “English News” you can search for articles in English. It includes the International Herald Tribune, The Asahi shinbun, and AJW (Asia & Japan Watch), an online English news portal that goes back to 2001. For a subtitled guide to searching Kikuzo II (listen in Japanese, read in English): http://www.asahi.com/information/db/movie/english.html
Try this for info on English searching: http://database.asahi.com/help/eng/englishdb_sousa01_e.html
Japan Chronicle This link opens in a new window
The English-language Japan Chronicle Weekly (1900–1940) is a British-oriented newspaper that covers Japan’s engagement with modernity, war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. This collection includes the Kobe Weekly Chronicle (1900-1901) the predecessor of the Japan Chronicle Weekly. It offers a perspective of expatriate communities in Japan and East Asia from 1900-1941.
Japan Times Archives This link opens in a new window
Japan Times Archives provides full-text searching and page images of the English-language newspaper Japan Times from 1897-2022 (Dec.). Japan Times is the oldest English language newspaper in Japan.
*Includes content for The Japan Advertiser. Founded by an American, the Japan Advertiser served as an essential Western perspective during Japan's aggressive advancement into Asia until the title was absorbed into the Japan Times in November 1940. It is a full image/full text searchable digital archive (1913-1940) and is available alongside the Japan Times Digital Archive.*
ProQuest Historical Newspapers Text-as-Data Collection This link opens in a new window
Search the PDF full text and image archives of more than 100 major U.S. newspapers.
An overview of newspaper, time coverage, and access points can be found on the NYU Libraries guide to the collection.

Japanese Digital Collections

National Diet Library of Japan Digital Collections
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/?__lang=en

Finding Images, guide created by the North American Coordinating Council of Japanese Library Resources (NCC)
https://guides.nccjapan.org/c.php?g=355419&p=2399810

Citing Sources

How to cite your sources
https://guides.nyu.edu/citations

Organizing your sources and creating bibliographies
https://guides.nyu.edu/citations/tools
Using Refworks, Endnote, Zotero, or Mendeley…
Getting Started with Refworks: https://guides.nyu.edu/refworks

Quick Guide on Citation Style for Chinese, Japanese and Korean Sources (Yale University Library)
https://guides.library.yale.edu/c.php?g=296262&p=1974226

For more assistance with citation management tools, contact librarian Margaret Smith, Physical Sciences Librarian: email ms4108 @nyu.edu