I was wondering about how could I approach studying Japanese history efficently. I'm good at remembering facts, but very bad at remembering when things happened. I realize now that if I had Anki in highschool, my life would have been different, and I don't want to repeat the mistake!

Does any of you know a book or a website to start studying?
I don't have a preference about historical periods, sooner or later I want to cover most of them, so if you know a good resource that covers just a few years, but in depth, I'm still interested in knowing it :-)

I will also make anki cards for things I want to remember... anyone has already done this with history? I was thinking about two kinds of cards:
Important dates: date on the front, what happened on the back
Historical figures: name on the front, quick description on the back.
Am I doing this right?

Another thing... I have some knowledge about how counting years. Do you think I should also memorize something regarding the system based on the reigns of the emperors? Should I add something to the "Important dates" about which yeat it was in the traditional calendar? On the front, or as an additional information on the back? Or should I do a separate set of cards using the traditional calendar, and start practicing on them after I know everything in the gregorian calendar?

[I'm putting this in General Discussion and not in Learning Resources because I'm not talking about learning Japanese, but about studying Japanese history... Is this a mistake?]

I found this website with a guy recommending what to read, http://sebastianmarshall.com/want-to-lea...th-sengoku
I dunno, check it out.

Givala Wrote:I found this website with a guy recommending what to read, http://sebastianmarshall.com/want-to-lea...th-sengoku
I dunno, check it out.

I ended up on that website (from google) before writing here, and I'm not finding it very convincing

There is this series called The Cambridge History of Japan (Cambridge University Press), that should give you an overview for starters.

I've taken a bunch of Japanese history courses at university. Some of the better 'textbooks' I've used are: (for studying up to 1600) "Japan to 1600 A Social and Economic History" by William wayne Farris, "Japanese Culture (4th ed.)" by Paul Varley, (for 1600 to ~1900) "Early Modern Japan" by Conrad Totman, and (general religious history Jomon-Meiji) "A History of Japanese Religion" edited by Kazuo Kasahara.

"Embracing defeat" is a fantastic book about Japanese post-war history.

Eratik, REH94, riogray, thank you :-)
This seems a lot of interesting material to get started!

Ephel Wrote:[I'm putting this in General Discussion and not in Learning Resources because I'm not talking about learning Japanese, but about studying Japanese history... Is this a mistake?]

Would be fantastic to be able to do both language and history at the same time.

REH94 Wrote:I've taken a bunch of Japanese history courses at university. Some of the better 'textbooks' I've used are: (for studying up to 1600) "Japan to 1600 A Social and Economic History" by William wayne Farris, "Japanese Culture (4th ed.)" by Paul Varley, (for 1600 to ~1900) "Early Modern Japan" by Conrad Totman, and (general religious history Jomon-Meiji) "A History of Japanese Religion" edited by Kazuo Kasahara.

Thanks for the book titles. Do you recommend going through them in the order you listed for optimal effect or does it really not matter?

@PotbellyPig: I personally read them in the order I gave them. It may be be better to read "Japan to 1600 A Social and Economic History" and "Japanese Culture (4th ed.)" together (they complement each other well) and then read "Early Modern Japan" but it is up to you. In my opinion, "A History of Japanese Religion" is better read once you have a stronger background in the 'non-religous' history to give it more context (although if you read the above 3 books you may find "A History of Japanese Religion" to be largely redundant).