NEW
2020!
'Discovering Japan' An overview of all our visits
to Japan since 1990 and our attempts to understand Japan and the Japanese
[pdf]
1990
First visit to Japan Visiting
Lecturer for the British Council, at Hokkaido University, for six weeks
in July-August.
1991
Tried to incorporate my Japanese experience into 'Notes
for a twelve chapter book'
1992
Four
sets of additional ideas and reflections, written in January to
May
'Work
and Culture: Some Comparisons of England and Japan',
in Wellsprings of Achievement: Cultural and Economic
Dynamics in Early Modern England and Japan, ed. P.Gouk
(Variorum, 1995). A conference at Oxford on Japan and the West.
'On
Individualism', Radcliffe-Brown Memorial Lecture,
British Academy Proceedings, vol.82., 1992, re-published
as a separate pamphlet by the Centre for Study of Cultural Values, Lancaster
University, 1994, 42pp.
1993
Second visit to Japan.
August.
'De
Tocqueville in Japan', the nature of Japanese society and culture.
c. 10,000 words, 1992, a short paper which was pre-circulated for a
seminar on Japan I organized.
'Japan
and the West', review article on three books on Japan, including
vol.iv of the Cambridge History of Japan, The Historical Journal,
36, 2 (1993).
'The
Origins of Capitalism in Japan, China and the West: The Work of Norman
Jacobs', Cambridge Anthropology, 17:3, 1994.
'Law
and custom in Japan: some comparative
reflections', Continuity and Change 10(3) (1995)
Written for a conference on comparative legal systems.
1994
'"Japan"
in an English Mirror', Modern Asian Studies,31,4 (1997) (review
of last four volumes of Cambridge History of Japan) Written in 1993-4.
The published version is abridged from a
longer original of 30,000 words.
Writing
a major part of 'The Savage Wars of Peace' (see 1997 below)
1995
'The
mystery of property: inheritance and industrialization in England and
Japan', in C.M.Hann (ed.), Property Relations. Renewing the Anthropological
Tradition. Cambridge, 1998. Writing
a major part of 'The Savage Wars of Peace' (see 1997 below)
1997
Third visit to Japan. Visiting Professor at the Department
of Anthropology, Tokyo University, September to December
'Technological
Evolution and Involution; A Preliminary Comparison of Europe and
Japan', (with S.Harrison) in John Ziman (ed.),
Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process (CUP., 2000)
A paper at a conference on technological change.
Review
of S.N. Eisenstadt, Japanese
Civilization: A Comparative Review. (Chicago, 1996), in Cambridge
Anthropology, 1998.
The
Savage Wars of Peace; England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap (Blackwell,
1997). Approximately half of the book (80,000 words) on Japan. Written
between December 1993 and May 1996. Many sections omitted from the published
work, dealing with specific features of Japan are available on this
link, as well as film.
1999
Fourth visit to Japan. We went with Windfall Films to
make parts of a six-part
documentary on the history of the world.
Writing
a part of 'The Making of the Modern World' on Fukuzawa, in this and
the next year, see under 2001
2001
The life and thought of Yukichi Fukuzawa, being the second part of The
Making of the Modern World: Visions from West and East, Palgrave,
2001. (For details of the six chapters on Fukuzawa)
2003
Fifth visit to Japan.
Visit to Hokkaido University and central Japan.
An article
on Kurosawa's film 'Rashomon',
awaiting publication.
2005
Wrote drafts and delivered two lectures as the Maruyama Masao Lectures
at Berkeley, California, on 'Fukuzawa
Yukichi and Maruyama Masao: Two Visions of Japan' and 'Fukuzawa
and Maruyama: How to Understand Japan'.
Wrote an
extended first draft [later] of the book that would
become 'Japan Through the Looking Glass'
2006
Sixth visit to Japan. Visit to Hokkaido University and
various other universities.
2007
publication of 'Japan Through
the Looking Glass' .
2007
An e-mail correspondence between James Bennett and Alan Macfarlane (March-June
2007) 'Travels in
a Japanese Mirror' .
[A largely
narrative account of the encounter with Japan is to be found under important
places in my life - Japan.]