• 
• First edition
• 112 pages / paper
• ISBN 978-4-903452-17-3
• ¥1,000 (¥952+tax)

This photo book provides an overview of the International House’s history of cultural exchange and intellectual cooperation from its dawn in 1952 to the present day. With over 300 images chronologically documenting various significant moments of cross-border dialogue between East and West, it illustrates the House’s pioneering role in promoting mutual understanding between Japan and other countries via dynamic intellectual exchange. A short essay chronicles how a personal encounter between John D. Rockefeller Ⅲ and Matsumoto Shigeharu, both of whom had already realized the importance of the cultural dimension within international affairs, developed, thereby leading to the establishment of the International House of Japan. As a good example of cross-border cooperation, this also serves to remind us of the important role of the private sector in intellectual exchange.

• 
• Japanese edition (partially in English) / 2009 / 304 pages / paper
• ISBN 978-4-903452-15-9
• ¥1,600 (¥1,524+tax)

Why has Japan’s presence in the international community declined in recent years? That is not only because the Japanese economy has been less and less influential, but because there are fewer and fewer Japanese “internationalists” who can play a leadership role.

The Nitobe Juku (now renamed the Nitobe Kokusai Juku) was launched in 2008 to foster a new generation of leaders committed to enhancing the public interest from a broad perspective and able to function in an international environment.

This collection of lectures, given at the 2008 Nitobe Juku by ten eminent professionals from academia, journalism, and international organizations, constitutes a “bible” for aspiring young internationalists as well as anyone concerned with Japan’s future role as a member of international society.

Lecturers of the Nitobe Juku include:

Akashi Yasushi

(Principal of Nitobe Juku; former UN Undersecretary General)
“The Need for More Japanese Able to Work in an International Environment”

Aoki Tamotsu

(Commissioner for Cultural Affairs)
“The Basic Character of Postwar Japanese Culture and Its Development”

Funabashi Yoichi

(Editor in Chief, Asahi Shimbun)
“How to Nitobe—Learning from Meiji Softpower”

Oshima Kenzo

(Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency)
“Diplomacy and International Cooperation as a Profession”

Tsurumi Shunsuke

(Philosopher)
“Tsurumi Shunsuke Speaks on Modern Japanese History

• 
• First English edition / 2009 / 212 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-14-2
• Originally published in Japanese in 2007 by PHP Kenkyuujo as Edo no idenshi.
• ¥2,500 (¥2,381+tax)

What was the Edo inheritance? The Japanese have often thought of the Edo period as Japan’s dark ages, when the nation, isolated under the Tokugawa shogunate’s national seclusion policy, fell hopelessly behind the rest of the world. In this book Tokugawa Tsunenari argues that, on the contrary, Tokugawa Japan was in many ways ahead of the West in its long peace and widespread prosperity.

After the anarchy of a hundred years of civil warfare, three extraordinary historical figures ushered in the Pax Tokugawa that lasted 265 years, from 1603 to 1868. Oda Nobunaga destroyed what remained of the medieval order, Toyotomi Hideyoshi brought Japan under a single authority, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun, constructed an enduring peace. Under Tokugawa rule control of flooding increased rice harvests, the samurai were transformed into a class of competent and highly moral administrators, and literacy spread. Japan in the eighteenth century was the most urbanized country in the world and boasted the most sophisticated culture of the time.

Writing from his unique perspective as the eighteenth head of the house of Tokugawa, the author points out that a reevaluation of the Tokugawa era is long overdue. Indeed, the solid cultural values fostered during those three centuries of peace—egalitarianism, a small government leaving much to local autonomy, religious tolerance, living in harmony with nature—have much to offer the world in an age of rapid globalization and uncertainty.

• 
• First English edition
• 2008 / 378 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-07-4
• ¥3,000 (¥2,858+tax)

The 1920s and 1930s were a turbulent era for the world economy—a time of shifting monetary policies, trade protectionism, and the Great Depression. Emerging on the world stage as the first non-Western industrial power, Japan faced charges of dumping and protectionism. This groundbreaking work by Michiko Ikeda examines the harsh environment faced by Japan in the years 1926 to 1937 and again in the years from 1948 to 1985. It draws on original study of League of Nations reports and of declassified government documents in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

• 
• First English edition / 2008 / 250 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-13-5
• Originally published in Japanese in 2006 by Iwanami Shoten Publishers as Terakoya Globalization.
• ¥3,000 (¥2,858+tax)

Education is under pressure throughout the world as globalization and technological revolution create a new Learning Society in which citizens can never stop learning new skills in work and life. In this volume, the journalist Reiko Kinoshita examines how a Japanese learning program, the Kumon Method, has quietly spread worldwide in response to this changed environment.

What is the secret of the Kumon Method, now in use by over four-million students in forty-five different countries? It developed out of the math worksheets that a teacher, Toru Kumon, made for his own son, but Kinoshita sees its roots in the self-study methods used in the terakoya, temple schools in Japan in the Edo Period (1600–1868), in which the children of commoners learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. Kumon students work at their own pace, learning new skills but also learning new attitudes of  self-confidence and autonomy.

But perhaps the real secret to the worldwide success of the Kumon Method can be found in the belief of Toru Kumon that there are no borders in learning, that we continue to grow by striving to be better.

• 
• Translated by David Noble
• Revised and expanded edition / 2008 / 388 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-06-7
• Originally published in Japanese in 2003 by Yoshikawa Kobunkan as Perii Raiko
• ¥3,000 (¥2,858+tax)

• 
• Translated by Charles H. Stewart
• Revised and expanded edition / 2008 / 268 pages / cloth
• ISBN 978-4-903452-12-8
• Originally published in Japanese in 1999 by Iwanami Shoten as Tenkanki no Nihon keizai
• Winner of the 2000 Yomiuri-Yoshino Sakuzo Prize
• ¥3,000 (¥2,858+tax)

• 
• Translated by David Noble
• 222 pages / cloth
• ISBN 978-4-903452-09-7
• Originally published in Japanese in 2006 by Iwanami Shoten as Maruyama Masao—Riberarisuto no shozo
• ¥2,500 (¥2,381+tax)

MARUYAMA MASAO (1914-96) has been widely regarded as an archetype of the twentieth-century Japanese intellectual. Immensely influential for his scholarly work in intellectual history and political science, Maruyama also reached a wider public through extensive writing and commentary in the leading opinion journals of the postwar period, where he emerged as an outspoken advocate of liberalism and democracy.

In this intellectual biography, Karube Tadashi traces Maruyama’s childhood and youth in prewar and wartime Japan, vividly depicting a number of the key experiences that deepened his commitment to democratic ideals and motivated his quest to ground them in the autonomy and integrity of the individual. This was the perspective that informed Maruyama’s postwar investigation of the problems of mass society and his efforts to reinterpet the Japanese tradition by dissecting its pathologies and tracing the alternative paths to modernity latent within it.

While demonstrating the significance of Maruyama’s life and thought to the modern Japanese experience, this book is not an idealized portrait of a great man. Maruyama’s ambivalence about his own political activity is clearly evident, as is the pathos of his later years, when, under attack by both the neo-nationalist right and the radical student left, he found himself isolated and in failing health and largely withdrew from public life, including his professorship at the University of Tokyo.

In this way, Karube offers a nuanced portrait of an era and a society through the lens of Maruyama and his thought, bringing into focus the concerns, trials, victories, and defeats of this representative twentieth-century thinker and the fate of the liberal intellectual tradition to which he committed his life.

• 
• Translated by Brian Miller
• 144 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-11-1
• Originally published in Japanese in 2003 in a somewhat different form by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun as Sony no Senritsu
• ¥2,000 (¥1,905+tax)

“‘Maximize the brand value of the four letters of the Sony name.’ As the company’s newly named president in 1982, that was how I answered journalists who asked about my management priorities. I had inherited the devotion to conscientious branding evoked memorably by Sony cofounder Akio Morita.

“Sony has retained the venture-business vitality that animated the company in its earliest days as a start-up. That lasting vitality is a tribute to Morita’s consistent emphasis on emphasizing capability and performance over academic credentials and on localizing our approach to business in markets around the world.

“The passion evinced by cofounders Masaru Ibuka and Morita persuaded me to abandon a career as an operatic baritone. Morita suggested that a job at Sony needn’t oblige me to abandon music as a serious avocation. In fact, it meant new challenges daily and a lifelong race across the planet. Not until late in my career did I regain the time to devote myself anew to music. Decade after decade passed as if in the batting of an eye. But that is simply evidence of the continuing excitement that is Sony. I hope that this book will convey some of that excitement.”

From the author's Prelude

• 
• 164 pages / paperback
• ISBN 978-4-903452-09-8
• ¥1,500 (¥1,429+tax)

This is a collection of papers and writings contributed to the House conference in summer 2006 to celebrate the renewal reopening of the International House of Japan. Attempting to grasp the complex and multiple meanings of "Globalization” beyond the conventional definition and understanding in terms of the growing interdependence of the world, the formation of global institutions, and mutually exclusive conditions of the global and the national (local), this volume aims at shedding light on its contradictory aspects from both a political and cultural perspective. While national borders seem to have subsided or been lowered for some in our rapidly interconnected world, new borders, real and imagined, are being constructed or reconstructed, as, for instance, seen in the widening gaps/disparities and the eruption of identity politics. How should the paradoxical development of two contrasting phenomena, —for example, economic globalization and the rediscovery of culture as the basis of identity—be perceived? Prominent intellectuals from academia, the mass media, and NGOs/NPOs from around the Asia-Pacific address such issues as the role of intellectuals, journalism, cultural /academic organizations, and the significance of cross-border networking, with a focus on the idea of the “public” in order to tackle a trans-disciplinary agenda in an increasingly borderless world.

• Paper contributors:
• Clifford Chanin, Founder and President of the Legacy Project
• James Fallows, National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly
• G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
• Ignas Kleden,Chairman of the Indonesian Community for Democracy (KID); Executive Director of the Center for East Indonesian Affairs (CEIA)
• Mary Byrne McDonnell, Executive Director,Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
• Mohamad, Maznah, Visiting Senior Fellow, National University of Singapore
• Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor of Japanese History at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,Australia National University.
• P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
• Saskia Sassen, Helen and Robert Lynd Professor of Sociology, Committee on Global Thought and Department of Sociology, Columbia University and Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics (LSE)

• 
• 312 pages / hardcover
• ISBN 978-4-903452-08-1
• A collection of papers presented at the Jansen Memorial Conference in 2001 and other essays on the man and work of Marius B. Jansen
• ¥3,000 (¥2,858+tax)

A prominent historian of modern Japan, the late professor Marius Jansen is known as the author of the highly acclaimed work Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration. He played a pioneering role in the internationalization of Japanese studies through his innovative scholarship and teaching, and was admired in Japan and Europe as well as the United States, not only for his contributions to the study of Japanese history, but for the way he tied Japan’s historical experience to the larger frames of inter-Asian, trans-Pacific, and indeed global history. The essays complied together in this volume—all written by old friends and former students—are centered on major themes running throughout his work. Four essays look at historiography and changing frameworks for interpreting Japan’s modernization, the rapid transition from feudal Tokugawa society to modern industrial power in just a few decades. Two others emulate Jansen’s commitment to history rooted in the particulars of local life, while the remaining pieces exemplify Jansen’s focus on the relationship between Japan and its various worlds—the many complex, overlapping, and often synergistic relationships between Japan and its Asian neighbors, and the wider world.

In such a range of essays Japan and Its Worlds provides a fitting tribute to Marius Jansen’s humanity, sharp wit and dry humor, and remarkable ability to synthesize and elegantly present complex historical issues. Reflecting Professor Jansen’s close association with the International House of Japan for more than forty years, the book also most appropriately includes an essay on the genesis and formative years of the International House and the role Jansen played therein.

• 
• Translated by David Noble
• 2007 / 180 pages / paperback
• ISBN 978-4-903452-04-3
• Originally published in Japanese in 2003 by Kodansha as Bummeishi no Naka no Meiji Kempo
• ¥2,000 (¥1,905+tax)

Kazuhiro Takii details the formulation of Japan's Meiji Constitution. He looks beyond the legal codification of the document and shows how the constitution catalyzed the emergence of a modern nation-state. Takii brings a cross-cultural perspective to his analysis. He relates how key leaders of Meiji Japan had experienced the West through fact-finding missions and extended overseas travel and research, and he demonstrates how their international experience shaped the policies and character of the nation-state that they helped build.

Japan's leaders had witnessed the piecemeal devouring of Qing-dynasty China by Western powers, and they were determined for Japan to avoid a similar fate. Takii describes how they proceeded by assimilating the elements of Western civilization that underpinned constitutional government.

• 
• Translated by Brian Miller
• 2007 / 167 pages / paperback
• ISBN 978-4-903452-05-0
• Originally published in Japanese in 2003 in a somewhat different form by Chuokoron-Shinsha as Noryoku Kochiku Kyoso: Nihon no Jidosha Sangyo wa Naze Tsuyoi no ka
• ¥2,000 (¥1,905+tax)

"A lot of water has passed under the bridge since this book first appeared in Japanese in 2003. Automakers prone to dramatic fluctuations in business and financial performance have-well-undergone more fluctuations in business and financial performance. Equally significant, however, is the 'boring' side of the industry: the automakers-led by Toyota and Honda-who remain unflaggingly profitable and who simply keep on growing.

"Shifts in currency exchange rates might buffet automakers' price competitiveness in export markets. A phenomenally successful model might inflate an automaker's earnings for a year or two. But the automakers that keep chugging along through it all are those that focus less on such aspects of 'surface competitiveness' than on the 'deep competitiveness' essentials of training employees, minimizing inventories, improving quality, shortening lead time, and otherwise fortifying their organizational capability. Building capabilities in manufacturing is a long-term challenge, and the basic emphases of the book published in 2003 remain as pertinent today as then."
From the author's introduction

• 
• Translated by Jean Connell Hoff.
• 2006 / Second edition / 218 pages / paperback
• ISBN 4-903452-00-X
• ¥1,400 (¥1,334+tax)

• 
• Translated by Frank & Jean Connell Hoff
• 2006 / An enlarged, revised edition / 388 pages / color photos / paperback
• ISBN 4-903452-01-8
• Originally published in Japanese in 2001 by the University of Tokyo Press as Kabuki
• ¥2,000 (¥1,905+tax)

"Kabuki became a world theatre in the second half of the 20th century, 350 years after its founding. In the 21st century, kabuki's value as a universal product of the human imagination and as a representative of a distinctively Japanese aesthetic sensibility will grow.

"Japanese theatre is a many-layered tradition that is not to be found in other countries; it flows on like a great river with many tributaries, and, thanks to its process of physical transmission, each genre of the traditional theatre parallels and coexists with the others without infringing upon them. The essence and form of this tradition is unlikely to change so long as Japan itself exists. And as kabuki, grounded in tradition, proceeds boldly forward into the new century along its dual pathway, its distinctly Japanese beauty will be disseminated to the rest of the world, and kabuki will continue to move and entertain audiences in Japan and worldwide."
From the afterword

• 
• Translated by Geraldine Harcourt
• 2006 / An enlarged, revised version / 282 pages / paperback / color photos
• ISBN 4-903452-02-6
• Originally published in Japanese in 2002 by TOTO Shuppan as Nihon no Ie: Kukan, Kioku, Kotoba
• ¥2,000 (¥1,905+tax)

Architectural historian Takeshi Nakagawa revisits Japan's traditional domestic architecture in twenty-five essays illustrated gorgeously with color photographs. The essays take on a personal warmth as the author recalls, for example, taking a nap on tatami shaded by reed blinds while "the din of cicadas would seem to pause for a moment as an occasional cool breeze blew."

Nakagawa demonstrates alarmingly how the quality of life has suffered in Japan's transition from traditional residential architecture to modern, and he offers concrete and realistic proposals for restoring some traditional amenity in a modern context. His book is a feast for the eyes and a treat for the inquisitive mind of anyone interested in Japanese architecture, culture, or history or in comparative architecture in general.

• 
• 2006 / Second edition / 214 pages / paperback
• ISBN 4-903452-03-4
• Originally published in Japanese in 2004 by Nihon Keizai Shimbun as Jinko Gensho Keizai no Atarashii Koshiki
• ¥1,500 (¥1,429+tax)

Japan's population has been aging for years. And now it is shrinking. A smaller and older workforce will mean a decline in productive potential. Declining tax revenues will starve already-strapped municipalities. Regions and industries accustomed to subsisting on public works spending will lose their traditional grubstakes. Japan's pension and health insurance programs will become unviable.

Akihiko Matsutani offers a refreshingly informed and far-reaching account of the economic and social implications of the demographic change under way in Japan. He exposes the futility of widely proposed measures for forestalling population and economic shrinkage, such as encouraging larger families and encouraging an influx of foreign workers. Matsutani urges Japanese, instead, to learn to live with a smaller, older population. Most strikingly, he argues persuasively that population shrinkage and aging promise to redress the great tragedy of Japan's postwar economic surge: the failure of economic growth to deliver commensurate improvement in the quality of life.