Problem: What do you think will happen in Japan, and in its actions outside of its "small island nation" over the course of the next decade or so? In addition, please give me a self-assessment of how your view of Japan has changed, or not changed, as a result of the reading and writing from these books? What do you think will be Japan's course over the next decade or so? How have you improved? (or not!)
Books:
1) Japan: A Modern History, by James L. McClain
2) Modern Japan: A History in Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by James L. Huffman
3) Peasants, Rebels, Women and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan, 2nd Edition, by Mikiso Hane
4) Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival, by David Pilling