Barak Kushner (born 7 April 1968) is an American historian, orientalist, and translator. He is a Professor of East Asian History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has written and edited numerous books and articles and has spoken on a range of East Asian history topics including Japanese imperial propaganda, the Japanese empire in East Asia, Japanese war crimes, and justice in East Asia. He has also written on other subjects, ranging from Godzilla and Japanese humor to ramen and the Chinese influence on early twentieth century notions of modern cuisine in Japan. [1] Kushner is married to Mami Mizutori [2] Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). He speaks and reads Chinese, English, French, Japanese.
BA, Brandeis University, 1990 PhD, Princeton University, 2002
The Asahi Shimbun Company, Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th-Century Japan (London: Bloomsbury Publishers, 2015, translated and edited by Barak Kushner with a foreword by Funabashi Yoichi), 320 pages.
Ramen is a Japanese noodle dish. It includes Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a broth. Common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including sliced pork, nori, menma, and scallions. Ramen has its roots in Chinese noodle dishes and is a part of Japanese Chinese cuisine. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, such as the tonkotsu ramen of Kyushu and the miso ramen of Hokkaido.
Shintaro Ishihara was a Japanese politician and writer, who served as the Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of the radical right Sunrise Party, later merged with Toru Hashimoto's Japan Restoration Party out of which he split his faction into the Party for Japanese Kokoro, he was one of the most prominent ultranationalists in modern Japanese politics. Ishihara was infamous for his misogynistic comments, his xenophobic views and his racist remarks against Chinese and Koreans in Japan, including his use of the antiquated pejorative term "sangokujin". He was also a denier of the Nanjing Massacre.
The Tanaka Memorial is an alleged Japanese strategic planning document from 1927 in which Prime Minister Baron Tanaka Giichi laid out a strategy to take over the world for Emperor Hirohito. The authenticity of the document was long accepted and it is still quoted in some Chinese textbooks, but historian John Dower states that "most scholars now agree that it was a masterful anti-Japanese hoax."
The Yamato or Wajin are an East Asian ethnic group that comprises over 98% of the population of Japan. Genetic and anthropometric studies have shown that the Yamato people predominantly descend from the Yayoi and Kofun people, who migrated to Japan from the continent beginning during the 1st millennium BC, and to a lesser extent the indigenous Jōmon people who had inhabited the Japanese archipelago for millennia prior.
John King Fairbank was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of China studies in the United States after World War II with his organizational ability, his mentorship of students, support of fellow scholars, and formulation of basic concepts to be tested.
Kenneth Pomeranz, FBA is University Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1980, where he was a Telluride Scholar, and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1988, where he was a student of Jonathan Spence. He then taught at the University of California, Irvine, for more than 20 years. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2006. In 2013–2014 he was the president of the American Historical Association. Pomeranz has been described as a major figure in the California School of economic history.
The Yulanpen Sutra, also known as the Ullambana Sutra, is a Mahayana sutra concerning filial piety. It was translated from an Indic language and is found in Taisho 685 and Taisho 686 in Volume 16, the third volume of the Collected Sutra Section. Taisho 685 was translated by Dharmarakṣa from 265-311 CE and is entitled: 'The Buddha Speaks the Yulanpen Sutra'. Taisho 686 was translated by an unknown or lost translator during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and is entitled: 'The Buddha Speaks the Sutra of Offering Bowls to Repay Kindness'. According to Karashima, Taisho 686 is basically a more idiomatic adaptation of Taisho 685. It records the events which followed after one of the disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, Maudgalyayana, achieves Abhijñā and uses his newfound powers to search for his deceased parents. In the end, Maudgalyayana finds his mother in the preta world and with the assistance of the Buddha, is able to save her. The East Asian Ghost Festival is based on this sutra.
During the interwar period in Japan, "incident" became a common euphemism for wars, coups, and other events of a politically sensitive or sensational nature. Using "incident" rather than more specific terms allowed Japanese journalists to maintain the appearance of neutrality while avoiding potential censorship. Prominent examples include the "Manchurian Incident", the "China Incident", and the "Nanjing Incident".
The Three Alls policy (Japanese: 三光作戦, Hepburn: Sankō Sakusen, was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three "alls" being "kill all, burn all, loot all". This policy was designed as retaliation against the Chinese for the Communist-led Hundred Regiments Offensive in December 1940.
Yōichi Masuzoe is a Japanese politician who was elected to the position of governor of Tokyo in 2014 and resigned in June 2016 due to the misuse of public funds. He was previously a member of the Japanese House of Councillors and served as the Minister of Health, Labour, and Welfare. Before entering politics, he became well known in Japan as a television commentator on political issues.
The Greater East Asia Conference was an international summit held in Tokyo from 5 to 6 November 1943, in which the Empire of Japan hosted leading politicians of various component parts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The event was also referred to as the Tokyo Conference.
The Lost Decades are a lengthy period of economic stagnation in Japan precipitated by the asset price bubble's collapse beginning in 1990. The singular term Lost Decade originally referred to the 1990s, but the 2000s and the 2010s have been included by commentators as the phenomenon continued.
Philip A. Kuhn was an American historian of China and the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.
Paul A. Cohen is Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies and History Emeritus at Wellesley College and Associate of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. His research interests include 19th-20th century China; historical thought; American historiography on China.
Nippon Kaigi is Japan's largest ultraconservative and ultranationalist far-right non-governmental organisation and lobbying group. It was established in 1997 and has approximately 38,000 to 40,000 members as of 2020.
Teru Hasegawa was a Japanese Esperantist, also known by her Esperanto pen name Verda Majo.
Endymion Porter Wilkinson is a British sinologist and diplomat who served as the European Union Ambassador to China and Mongolia from 1994 to 2001. He is particularly noted for Chinese History: A New Manual, the first version of which appeared in 1973, an authoritative guide to Sinology and Chinese history for which he was awarded the Prix Stanislas Julien for 2014. The 2022 revised and enlarged Sixth Edition consists of two volumes, 1.7-million-words, covering topics, primary sources, and scholarship from earliest times to 1976.
Ronald Suleski is a historian, anthropologist and author specializing in East Asia. He has been the longest serving president of the Asiatic Society of Japan, served on the National Committee on US-China Relations and associated with the Harvard University's East Asian research center. He is currently serving as the Director of the Rosenberg Institute at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Gō Rijū is a Japanese film director and actor.
Akinobu Kuroda(黑田明伸) is professor of East Asian history in the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo. He specialises in the complementarity of monies in East Asia, India, Africa, and Europe.