If a Viking ship had landed on the shores of Japan instead of North America in the 10th or 11th centuries, what would they have found and how would it have changed history?
One of Japan's original eccentrics, the "lady who loved insects" ignored the trends of her day and was content to be herself — a valuable lesson to the generations that followed.
Japanese Zen master Daisetz T. Suzuki gets philosophical with an eminent British historian of Japan.
A bestseller from 1970 compares and contrasts two peoples more different than alike, and yet both sharing a sense of uniqueness.
Fifty years ago, a significant portion of Japan's youth chose violence. The population watched the results unfold on television like some terrifying soap opera.
Saigo Takamori's samurai rank was low, but that might account for his love for the land and disdain for wealth and power.
The seeds of modern Japanese nationalism were sown by nativist scholar Motoori Norinaga, who lauded the concept of "mono no aware."
Watanabe Kazan discovered a talent for drawing early on and became a hack artist, painting on demand for pennies. It kept starvation at bay.
A Heian Period text reads, "Ladies must often depend on men who are nothing to them — it is the way of the world." In Japanese literature, not much has changed.
As a new year dawns, find calm and beauty in the vanished world of Murasaki Shikibu's 'The Tale of Genji.'
