Japanese History Beyond National History
by Joan R. Piggott
Talk given at the Dec. 8-9, 2010 Conference
As a teacher and researcher of Japan’s history outside Japanese borders, I have to think about why what I study and teach matters to students and historians who are not specialists in Japanese or even East Asian history. My answer is that there are themes in Japan’s history that offer particularly useful insights for thinking about the history of other places. In this talk I will talk about some of the ways I frame my own work in regional and world historical perspectives, in the process of taking Japan’s history beyond national history.