Tomorrow we are doing short (one-minute) mini-presentations on “nihonjinron”, which is really hard to define but was best summed up to me as “the study of Japanese history and uniqueness”. My presentation will be on Amino Yoshihiko, a Marxist historian. His writings rarely ever made it outside of Japan, and yet he is viewed as one of the most important modern historians in Japan. The lack of internationalization of his works is so notable there is an entire paragraph quote that takes up about a quarter of the article for him on Wikipedia. There’s by far enough information there and in the references linked for me to talk for a good two minutes, but sadly there’s not much more. Basically, Amino opposed the idea of the unique Japanese image after studying the people of the past who were in stark contrast to the image.
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