This engaging book challenges the traditional notion that Japan was an isolated nation cut off from the outside world in the early modern era. This familiar story of seclusion results from viewing the period solely in terms of Japan's ties with the West, at the expense of its relationship with closer Asian neighbors.
Marius Berthus Jansen was Emeritus Professor of Japanese History at Princeton University. Jansen graduated from Princeton in 1943, having majored in European history of the Renaissance and Reformation. After serving in the United States Army, during which time he studied Japanese and working in the Occupation of Japan, Jansen returned to the United States and completed his PhD in history at Harvard in 1950, studying Japan with Edwin O. Reischauer and China with John K. Fairbank. Jansen began his teaching career at the University of Washington in 1950 and moved to Princeton in 1959 as professor in the departments of history and Oriental studies, where he taught until his retirement in 1992.