- Item #C539
- ISBN: 0-938960-53-9
- ISBN13: 978-0-938960-53-9
- Copyright 2008
- Form: Paperback, Trade paperback (US)
- Also available in: Hardback, Sewn, $44.00
- Price: $24.95
About the Author
Richard H. Minear
Richard H. Minear is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. A specialist in Japanese history, he is the author, translator, or editor of a dozen books. Most of them concern Japan. Japanese Tradition and Western Law: Emperor, State, and Law in the Thought of Hozumi Yatsuka (Harvard, 1970) and Victors' Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton, 1971) have been translated into Japanese.
He has served on the board of the Five College Center for East Asian Studies for many years. The Five College Center for East Asian Studies is a consortium of: Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA. In addition to the Center's commitment to undergraduate East Asian studies at the five institutions, it works to support, encourage, and improve the teaching of East Asian cultures in elementary, middle, and secondary schools, and two- and four-year colleges in the Northeast. It distributes high quality resources for teaching about East Asia at the college and pre-college levels, and to offers opportunities for pre-college educators to experience East Asian cultures firsthand. The Center maintains a Resource Library, publishes a newsletter three times a year, and conducts seminars, institutes, conferences, and workshops for college and pre-college educators, based at Smith College in Northampton, MA.
His own translations focus on World War II: Yoshida Mitsuru's Requiem for Battleship Yamato (University of Washington, 1985); Hiroshima survivor accounts by Hara Tamiki, O-ta Yo-ko, and To-ge Sankichi (Hiroshima: Three Witnesses, Princeton, 1990) and poetry of Hiroshima survivor Kurihara Sadako (Black Eggs, University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 1994); the autobiography of historian Ienaga Saburo-, who fought long courtroom battles against the Japanese government's attempts to soften his dark view of the Pacific War (Japan's Past, Japan's Future: One Historian's Odyssey, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); and Takeyama Michio's essays about the home front, The Scars of War: Tokyo during World War II (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). In addition, he is the author of the best-selling Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel (New Press, 1999).
His articles and reviews have appeared in American Historical Review, American Journal of Legal History, Asianists' Teaching Notes, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Education About Asia, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Japan Interpreter, Journal of American History, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Journal of Asian Studies, Japanfocus.org, and other journals.
He has received support for his research from the Fulbright Commission, the Japan Foundation, and ACLS-SSRC. He lived in Japan 1964-66, 1970-71 (both in Kyoto), 1992-93 (Tokyo and Hokkaido) and for shorter stays at other times. He has directed NEH Summer Institutes for teachers and is actively involved in the activities of the Five College Center for East Asian Studies.
Active in town politics, he was an elected member of the Amherst Town Meeting (1976-91) and of the Amherst Select Board (1981-90).