Books by W. G. Beasley

Born in 1919, W.G. Beasley learnt Japanese at the U.S. Navy Language School, Boulder, Colorado, and first visited Japan as a naval officer in 1945, serving in the British mission in Tokyo during the following winter. He returned many times to Japan to carry out research at Tokyo University. From 1954 to 1983 he was Professor of the History of the Far East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a former vice-president of the British Academy and one of the very few non-Japanese members of the Japan Academy. He was given the CBE in 1980 and the Order of the Rising Sun in 1983. The Modern History of Japan was published in 1963 and went through three editions before being retitled The Rise of Modern Japan in 1990.