Japan

At the outset of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan enjoyed a seat at the top table, but the vexed issue of racial equality set it and its notional Western allies on different paths.

Miyamoto Musashi was finally defeated on 13 June 1645, but it wasn’t a sword that laid the formidable samurai low.

How an English navigator became one of the shogun’s most trusted advisers.

Pacy and even-handed, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass is unlikely to be bettered as a portrait of the Tokyo trials.

Japan has had a vexed relationship with Jesus ever since European missionaries arrived on its shores. Banned until 1873, successive leaders have asked whether love of the ‘two Js’ is compatible.

The everyday concerns of two Korean farmers are a microcosm of the huge changes their country underwent in the early 20th century.

The ‘way of tea’ is a ritual experience that embodies the natural world with all its imperfections.

Japan’s responsibility for ‘comfort women’ is avoided by the state and written out of national histories. Activists are working to make Japan confront its past.

Puccini’s opera revealed misunderstandings and stereotypes on both sides of the East-West divide.