The preeminent Western authority on Japanese literature a presents a collection of personal essays and literary vignettes that offers a fresh and personal insight into his prolific career as a writer and translator, traveler and social observer.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.

This is the intimate and inspiring story of one of the truly great cosmopolitans of our time. During an exceptional career spanning five decades, Donald Keene has brought the works of Japan's greatest writers to worldwide attention through his highly acclaimed writings, translations, and anthologies. On Familiar Terms is the deeply personal story of his remarkable life - from a Depression-era childhood through his wartime experiences as a naval intelligence officer in the Pacific, his early enchantment with the now-vanished world of old Kyoto, and the diverse and lasting friendships he made in New York, Japan, and England. In this poignant and engaging portrait of intellectual, spiritual, and personal growth, Donald Keene recalls his lifelong journey, including fascinating relationships with and illuminating anecdotes about such writers as Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe. This is a story of universal interest, of self-discovery among shifting cultural boundaries, and the making of a committed internationalist against the backdrop of a complex and restless world.

This book is about Americans not of Japanese ancestry, who served as Japanese language officers in World War II. Covering the period 1940-1945, it describes their selection, training, and service in the Navy and Marine Corps during the war and their contributions to maintenance of good relations between America and Japan thereafter. It argues that their service as “code breakers” and combat interpreters hastened victory and that their cross-cultural experience and linguistic knowledge facilitated the successful dismantling of the Japanese Empire and the peaceful occupation of Japan. The book shows how the war changed relations between the Navy and academia, transformed the lives of these 1200 men and women, and set onetime enemies on course to enduring friendship. Its purpose is twofold: to reveal an exciting and hitherto unknown aspect of the Pacific War and to demonstrate the enduring importance of linguistic and cross-cultural knowledge within America’s armed forces in war and peace alike.The book is meant for the general reader interested in World War II, as well as academic specialists and other persons particularly interested in that conflict. It will also appeal to readers with an interest in America’s intelligence establishment and to those interested in Japan and its relations with the United States. This history tells and exciting and previously unknown story of men and women whose brains and devotion to duty enabled them to learn an extraordinarily difficult language and use it in combat and ashore to hasten Japan’s defeat and transformation from enemy to friend of America.

The idea of a global history of music may be traced back to the Enlightenment, and today, the question of a conceptual framework for a history of music that pays due attention to global relationships in music is often raised. But how might a historical interpretation of those relationships proceed? How should it position, or justify, itself? What would 'Western music' look like in an account of music history that aspires to be truly global? The studies presented in this volume aim to promote post-European historical thinking. They are based on the idea that a global history of music cannot be one single, hegemonic history. They rather explore the paradigms and terminologies that might describe a history of many different voices. The chapters address historical practices and interpretations of music in different parts of the world, from Japan to Argentina and from Mexico to India. Many of these narratives are about relations between these cultures and the Western tradition; several also consider socio-political and historical circumstances that have affected music in the various regions. The book addresses aspects that Western musical historiography has tended to neglect even when looking at its own culture: performance, dance, nostalgia, topicality, enlightenment, the relationships between traditional, classical, and pop musics, and the regards croisés between European, Asian, or Latin American interpretations of each other’s musical traditions. These studies have been derived from the Balzan Musicology Project Towards a Global History of Music (2013–2016), which was funded by the International Balzan Foundation through the award of the Balzan Prize in Musicology to the editor, and designed by music historians and ethnomusicologists together. A global history of music may never be written in its entirety, but will rather be realised through interaction, practice, and discussion, in all parts of the world.

A pioneering study of German and Japanese postwar fiction, providing a broad cultural basis for understanding a half-century of responses to World War II from within the two societies.