Okinawa The History Of An Island People

Author : George Kerr
Publisher : Tuttle Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780804820875
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Okinawa: The History of an Island People written by George Kerr and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2000-10-01 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first full–length monograph on the history of the Ryukyu Islands in any Western language…a standard work."—Pacific Affairs This book is the definitive work on Okinawan History and an important scholarly work in the fields of Japanese studies and Japanese history. Few people can point to Okinawa on a map, yet this tiny island sitting between China and Japan was and continues to be one of the most crucial Asian nerve centers in all U.S. strategic defense. Ninety percent of all U.S. military forces in Japan are located on Okinawa, one of the Ryukyu Islands, and it was through these troops that the martial art of karate was exported to the United States. In Okinawa: History of an Island People, noted Eastern affairs specialist George Kerr recounts the fascinating history of the island and its environs, from 1314 A.D. to the late twentieth century. The histories of Japan, Okinawa and the entire Pacific region are crucially intertwined, so the study of this fascinating chain of islands is crucial to understanding all of East Asia. First published in 1958, this edition features a new introduction and appendix by Okinawa history scholar Mitsugu Sakihara, making this the most comprehensive resource on the small, vital, and intriguing island of Okinawa.

Author : George H. Kerr
Publisher : Tuttle Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1462901840
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Okinawa: The History of an Island People written by George H. Kerr and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first full–length monograph on the history of the Ryukyu Islands in any Western language…a standard work."—Pacific Affairs Okinawa: The History of an Island People is the definitive book available in English on the history of Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, and an influential scholarly work in the field of Japanese studies. The histories of Japan, Okinawa and the entire Pacific region are crucially intertwined; therefore the review of this fascinating chain of islands is crucial to understanding all of East Asia. Few people can point to Okinawa on a map, yet this tiny island sitting between China and Japan is a hub for international affairs. The island was, and continues to be, one of the most crucial Asian nerve centers in all U.S. strategic defense. Ninety percent of all U.S. military forces in Japan are located on Okinawa, and more than 500,000 military personnel and their families have lived there. In Okinawa: The History of an Island People, noted Eastern affairs specialist George Kerr recounts the fascinating history of the island and its environs, from 1314 A.D. to the late twentieth century. First published in 1958, this edition features an introduction and appendix by Okinawa history scholar Mitsugu Sakihara, making this the most comprehensive resource on the intriguing island of Okinawa.

Author : Elizabeth Miki Brina
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0525657355
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Speak, Okinawa written by Elizabeth Miki Brina and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “hauntingly beautiful memoir about family and identity” (NPR) and a young woman's journey to understanding her complicated parents—her mother an Okinawan war bride, her father a Vietnam veteran—and her own, fraught cultural heritage. Elizabeth's mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance that defined their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their only daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood and adolescence. Yet even though she felt almost no connection to her mother's distant home, she also felt out of place among her peers. Decades later, Elizabeth comes to recognize the shame and self-loathing that haunt both her and her mother, and attempts a form of reconciliation, not only to come to terms with the embattled dynamics of her family but also to reckon with the injustices that reverberate throughout the history of Okinawa and its people. Clear-eyed and profoundly humane, Speak, Okinawa is a startling accomplishment—a heartfelt exploration of identity, inheritance, forgiveness, and what it means to be an American.

Author : Robinson,
Publisher : Tuttle Publishing
ISBN 13 : 146291277X
Total Pages : 110 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Okinawa: A People and Their Gods written by Robinson, and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2005-05-15 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Okinawa is a fascinating account of the most unusual religious practices of the Okinawan people. Subject throughout their long history to many foreign influences, the Okinawan people still retain to a remarkable degree a strong reverence for their prehistoric animistic beliefs. nevertheless, in accommodating themselves to the infiltration of Buddhist, Confucian, Shinto, and Christian influences they have been most receptive, with the result that what might seem confusing, illogical, and inconsistent to others, is quite compatible to them. This brief but authoritative account not only correlates present-day practices with their historical development, but also takes notice of current trends and likely future developments in Okinawa. The text is enhanced with sixteen significant photographs and with nine full-page maps to guide sightseers to Okinawa's most culturally significant places.

Author : Gavan McCormack
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538115565
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Resistant Islands written by Gavan McCormack and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in a thoroughly updated edition, Resistant Islands offers the first comprehensive overview of Okinawan history from earliest times to the present, focusing especially on the recent period of colonization by Japan, its disastrous fate during World War II, and its current status as a glorified US military base. The base is a hot-button issue in Japan and has become more widely known in the wake of Japan’s 2011 natural disasters and the US military role in emergency relief. Okinawa rejects the base-dominated role allocated it by the US and Japanese governments under which priority attaches to its military functions, as a kind of stationary aircraft carrier. The result has been to throw US-Japan relations into crisis, bringing down one prime minister who tried to stop construction of yet another base on the island and threatening the incumbent if he is unable to deliver Okinawan approval of the new base. Okinawa thus has become a template for reassessing the troubled US-Japan relationship—indeed, the geopolitics of the US empire of bases in the Pacific.

Author : Ruth Ann Keyso
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801486654
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Women of Okinawa written by Ruth Ann Keyso and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Three of the women were born before the Pacific War, and their first memories of Americans are of troops coming ashore with bayonets fixed. A second group, now middle-aged, grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, when massive American bases were a fixture of the landscape. The youngest women, for whom the bases are a historical accident, are in their twenties and thirties, raised in a country increasingly confident of its status as a world power.".

Author : Mamoru Akamine
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824855205
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ryukyu Kingdom written by Mamoru Akamine and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This English translation of a key work by one of Okinawa’s most respected historians, Mamoru Akamine, provides a compelling new picture of the role played by the Ryukyu Kingdom in the history of East Asia. Okinawa Island, from which the present-day Japanese prefecture derives its name, is the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, an archipelago that stretches between Japan and Taiwan. In the present volume, Akamine chronicles the rise of the Ryukyu Kingdom in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it played a major part in East Asian trade and diplomacy. Then Ryukyu was indeed the cornerstone in a vibrant East Asian trade sphere centered on Ming China, linking what we now call Japan, Korea, and China to Southeast Asia. With historical and cultural connections to both Japan and China, Ryukyu also mediated diplomatically between the two nations, whose leaders more often than not refused to deal with each other directly. But eventually the kingdom became a victim of its own success. Political developments in China and Japan starting in the sixteenth century brought great changes to the region, and in 1609 Ryukyu was invaded by Satsuma, Japan’s southernmost domain. The China-Japan geopolitical rivalry would in time be acted out within Ryukyu itself, as one faction strove to maintain ties with China while another supported union with rapidly modernizing Japan. Throughout the work Akamine’s approach to Ryukyu history is distinguished by his expert use of Chinese and Korean sources, which allows him to examine events from several different angles. This contributes to a broad, sweeping narrative, revealing an East Asia made up of many shifting and interrelated parts—not just nation states pursuing their own interests. Akamine’s facility with Chinese texts in particular uncovers telling details that add considerably to the historical record. His meticulous account of one of Ryukyu’s tribute missions to China, for example, or the role of feng shui in the design of Shuri Castle, the royal and administrative center of the kingdom, is detailed without being pedantic. As a result, readers will come away with a broader, more informed understanding of Ryukyu’s significance in the region and the complexity of its relations with its neighbors.

Author : Robert Walker
Publisher : Tuttle Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1462914314
Total Pages : 636 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands written by Robert Walker and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Lowell Thomas Annual Travel Book Award Silver Medal Winner 2015** Travel to the most inspiring tropical islands on the planet! Everything you need is in this one convenient Okinawa travel guide--including a large pull-out map. Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands is the first comprehensive travel guide to the 150 sub-tropical island chain that stretches across 600 miles from Japan to Taiwan. These are some of the most stunningly beautiful islands in the world! Trek up active volcanoes, soak in natural hot springs, enjoy pristine white sand beaches, and sample Okinawa's superb homegrown cuisine. Experienced author Robert Walker tells you how to get there, where to go, where to stay and what to do, including: Ferry schedules and flights Lodgings on all inhabited islands Best beaches and surf spots Hikes and nature walks Sights suitable for families with children Historical and cultural landmarks With over 200 color photographs and 40 maps, this book provides essential travel tips to help tourists avoid costly mistakes. It also includes a large fold-out map of Okinawa and the Ryukyu chain with insets for the major islands and cities.

Author : Arnold G. Fisch
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Military Government in the Ryukyu Islands, 1945-1950 written by Arnold G. Fisch and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Military government on Okinawa from the first stages of planning until the transition toward a civil administration.

Author : Michael Molasky
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824823009
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Southern Exposure written by Michael Molasky and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2000-08-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southern Exposure is the first anthology of Okinawan literature to appear in English translation, and it appears at a propitious time. Although Okinawa Prefecture comprises only one percent of Japan's population, its writers have been winning a disproportionate number of literary awards in recent years--including the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for fiction, which was awarded to Matayoshi Eiki in 1996 and to Medoruma Shun in 1997. Both Matayoshi and Medoruma are represented in this anthology, which includes a wide range of fiction as well as a sampling of poetry from the 1920s to the present day. Modern Okinawa has been forged by a history of conquest and occupation by mainland Japan and the United States. Its sense of dual subjugation and the propensity of its writers to confront their own complicity with Japanese militarism imbues Okinawa's literary tradition with insightful perspectives on a wide range of issues. But this tradition is as deeply rooted in the region's lush semitropical landscape as in the forces of history. As this anthology demonstrates, Okinawan writers often suffuse their works with a lyricism and humor that disarms readers while bringing them face to face with the region's richly ambiguous legacy.