Open Access Books about Japan
as of August 2020
Originally compiled by Allison Alexy and Jordan Cleland at the University of Michigan
A few notes:
ANU Press also has a few other Japan-related titles, some already in this list. All of its publications are open access.
The University of Michigan Press has a number of OA books focused on Japan and is currently growing their list.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has also made a number of its out-of-print exhibition catalogs, including more than fifty on Japanese art, free to download.
Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan
Allison Alexy
University of Chicago Press, open access through TOME
https://bibliopen.org/p/bopen/9780226701004
Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict
edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25933
Confucianisms for a Changing World Cultural Order
Edited by Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock
University of Hawai'i Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3zp05k
Violets between Cherry Blossoms: The Diffusion of Classical Motifs to the East
P.L.W. Arts
Leiden University Press
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/32877
Transnational Japan in the Global Environmental Movement
Simon Avenell
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0qwk
The Uncanny Child in Transnational Cinema: Ghosts of Futurity at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century
Jessica Balanzategui
Amsterdam University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv80cc7v
The Tools of Owatatsumi: Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities
Desmond Ball and Richard Tanter
Australian National University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13wwvvt
Intellectual Property in the Global Arena: Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, and the Recognition of Judgments in Europe, Japan and the US
Edited by JĂĽrgen Basedow, Toshiyuki Kono and Axel Metzger
Mohr Siebeck
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/intellectual-property-in-the-global-arena-9783161512964?no_cache=1
Mixed Member Electoral Systems in Constitutional Context: Taiwan, Japan, and Beyond
Edited by Nathan F. Batto, Chi Huang, Alexander C. Tan, and Gary W. Cox
University of Michigan Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gk08h7
Geopolitics by Other Means: The Indo-Pacific Reality
Edited by Axel Berkofsky and Sergio Miracola
ISPI
https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/indo-pacific_web_2.pdf
What Is a Family?: Answers from Early Modern Japan
Edited by Mary Elizabeth Berry and Marcia Yonemoto
University of California Press, open access through luminos
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvr7fdd1
Multiregionalism and Multilateralism: Asian-European Relations in a Global Context
Edited by Sebastian Bersick, Wim Stokhof, Paul van der Velde, Benedikt Seemann
Amsterdam University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kcmv
Institutional Change in Japan
Edited by Magnus Blomstrom and Sumner La Croix
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203968819
The Other Women's Lib: Gender and Body in Japanese Women's Fiction
Julia C. Bullock
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqcz0
Rethinking Japanese Feminisms
Edited by Julia C. Bullock, Ayako Kano, and James Welker
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3zp07j
Sacred Men: Law, Torture, and Retribution in Guam
Keith Camacho
Duke University Press
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/71933
Anti Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia
Leo T.S. Ching
Duke University Press, open access through TOME
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/24900
Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan
Rebecca Corbett
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3zp062
Consuming Life in Post Bubble Japan: A Transdiciplinary Perspective
Edited by Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, Ewa Machotka
University of Amsterdam Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv56fgjm
A Bowl for a Coin: A Commodity History of Japanese Tea
by William Wayne Farris
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/580815?language=en
Child’s Play: Multi-Sensory Histories of Children and Childhood in Japan
Edited by Sabine FrĂĽhstĂĽck and Anne Walthall
University of California Press, open access through Luminos
https://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/e/10.1525/luminos.40/
Robotics in Germany and Japan: Philosophical and Technical Perspectives
Edited by Michael Funk and Bernhard Irrgang
Peter Lang
https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/14056
Japan's China Policy: A Relational Power Analysis
Linus Hagström
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203023792
Cities, Autonomy, and Decentralization in Japan
Edited by Carola Hein, Philippe Pelletier
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203358498
Japanese Media Cultures in Japan and Abroad: Transnational Consumption of Manga, Anime, and Media-Mixes
Edited by Manuel Hernández-Pérez
MDPI
https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/1386
Figures of the World: The Naturalist Novel and Transnational Form
Christopher Hill
Northwestern University Press, open access through TOME
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/156043/Hill-Figures%20of%20the%20World.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Housing and Social Transition in Japan
Edited by Yosuke Hirayama and Richard Ronald
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203967423
Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics
Edited By Barbara Holthus, Isaac Gagné, Wolfram Manzenreiter, Franz Waldenberger
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003033905
Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues
Glenn D. Hook
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203015384
Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy: Past and Present
Edited by Janet Hunter and Cornelia Storz
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203028018
Japan's Subnational Governments in International Affairs
Purnendra Jain
Routledge
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203413906
Beyond the Limits to Growth: New Ideas for Sustainability from Japan
Hiroshi Komiyama
Springer
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9784431545583
Atomic Assurance: The Alliance Politics of Nuclear Proliferation
Alexander Lanoszka
Cornell University Press
https://cornellopen.org/9781501729188/atomic-assurance/
Revolution Goes East: Imperial Japan and Soviet Communism
Tatiana Linkhoeva
Cornell University Press, open access through TOME
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748097/revolution-goes-east/#bookTabs=1
The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868–1961
Sidney Xu Lu
Cambridge University Press
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/making-of-japanese-settler-colonialism/644DFDA740495E1C2D49B20CCF914418
Placing Empire: Travel and the Social Imagination in Imperial Japan
Kate McDonald
University of California Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1w8h288
Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era
Meron Medzini
Academic Studies Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/573031
Pacific Exposures: Photography and the Australia–Japan Relationship
Melissa Miles and Robin Gerster
Australian National University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv9hj8jz
Agricultural and Forestry Reconstruction After the Great East Japan Earthquake: Tsunami, Radioactive, and Reputational Damages
Edited by Toshiyuki Monma, Itsuo Goto, Takahisa Hayashi, Hidekiyo Tachiya, and Kanju Ohsawa
Springer
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9784431555575
Japan’s Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform
Aurelia George Mulgan
Australian National University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt31ngnn
Power and Pork: A Japanese Political Life
Aurelia George Mulgan
Australian National University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbjf8
Footprints in Paradise: Ethnography of Ecotourism, Local Knowledge and Nature Therapies in Okinawa
Andrea E. Murray
Berghahn Books, open access through KNowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ws7wk4
Japan's Future in East Asia and the Pacific
Edited by Mari Pangestu and Ligang Song
Australian National University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h334
Japanese Reflections on WWII and American Occupation
Edgar A. Porter and Ran Ying Porter
Amsterdam University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1pk3jj7
The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies
Willem Remmelink
Leiden University Press
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/35184
Dilemmas of Adulthood: Japanese Women and the Nuances of Long-Term Resistance
Nancy Rosenberger
University of Hawai'i Press, open access through Knowledge Unlatched
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvvn5bm
The History Problem: The Politics of War Commemoration in East Asia
Hiro Saito
University of Hawai'i Press
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/531004
Alegal: Biopolitics and the Unintelligibility of Okinawan Life
Annmaria M. Shimabuku
Fordham University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv75db00
Bridging Australia and Japan: The Writings of David Sissons, Historian and Political Scientist
Edited by Arthur Stockwin and Keiko Tamura