Modern Jap A Historical Survey By Mikiso Hane

Evaluation of Sources

Modern Japan: A Historical Survey is written by author Mikiso Hane. This book was published in 1986 by Westview Press, Inc. in Colorado. Mikiso Hane was a Japanese History Scholar who was distinguished internationally for his works. He acquired his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in history from Yale University and became an acclaimed Emeritus of History professor who worked in Yale, University of Toledo, and Knox College. Not only did he teach Japanese history, he taught Chinese, Russian, Indian, and western history. He also went to Germany and Japan for research after he attained his doctorate. As a child, he moved to Japan from Hollister California, where he was originally born in 1922. During the war, he went back to the states and was sent to a Japanese internment camp. However, he earned money by teaching Japanese in Yale to put himself through college. Hane is the author of 14 books, educational articles, and college text books, many of which are highly respected works of his. He also gained National Council membership for his widely respected contributions to the humanities.

Modern Japan: A Historical Survey focuses on the economic, political, and social developments by discussing how it shaped modern Japan. An example would be that he describes how the economical growth during the 50s and 60s have impacted social groups of people positively and how social groups have benefited from the rise of the economy. This is a secondary source and the audience are fellow scholars. This source was produced for the sake of analyzing how political, economical, and social developments have shaped modern Japan.

The value in this source is that the author focuses on analyzing all aspects of Japa...

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... the audience are scholars of Japanese History.

This source is valuable because it provides an analyzation on the developments of modern Japan by focusing on the social, industrial, and political aspects. It provides graphs that emphasize and visualize the written content and the book lists the other sources that have contributed to its content. It also contains little bias because of the author being a historian. This author is very reliable because he has a PhD in History and has studied Japanese History. This source has personal value to my research because it is very straightforward, provides facts and data, and focuses on my topic.

However, this is a secondary source so the limitations are that the author was not in Japan at the time it was developing. It only covers a few aspects of the development of modern Japan, not all aspects are covered in this book.