author
Katsuro Hara
1871–1924
A pioneering Japanese historian, he wrote one of the early English-language surveys of Japan's past for international readers. His work aimed to show the country's cultural and social development, not just its military history.
1 Audiobook
An Introduction to the History of Japan
by Katsuro Hara
About the author
Born in Morioka on April 15, 1871, Katsuro Hara became a respected historian of Japan. The National Diet Library notes that he graduated from the Faculty of History at Tokyo Imperial University in 1896, later studied in Europe and the United States, and went on to build his career as a scholar of history.
He is best known to many English-language readers for An Introduction to the History of Japan, published in the early 1920s. The book set out to present a broad view of Japanese civilization and historical change for readers outside Japan, making his scholarship especially important as a bridge between Japanese history and an international audience.
Hara died on January 14, 1924. Though not a household name today, his writing remains a valuable window into how Japan's history was explained to the world in the early twentieth century.