Tag archieven: Okinawa

Amerikaanse historicus, Japan, Japanse geschiedenis

Gregory Smits – The Ryukyu Islands

Gregory Smits The Ryukyu Islands review, recensie en informatie boek over de geschiedenis van Okinawa en de Japanse Riukiu-eilanden van de steentijd tot het heden. Op 24 november 2025 verschijnt bij The University of Chicago Press het boek van Gregory Smits de Amerikaanse historicus en professor Aziatische Studies aan de Penn State Universiteit over de geschiedenis van de Riukiu-eilanden. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Gregory Smits The Ryukyu Islands review en recensie

  • “The Ryukyu Islands is well researched, insightful, and informative. With an accessible prose style, it is a perfect book for scholars focused on Okinawan/Ryukyuan history, but it will also be of interest to anyone exploring Japanese history and East Asia.” (Mark McNally, University of Hawaii at Manoa)
  • “The Ryukyu Islands is one of the most outstanding monographs on the history of Okinawa. Smits not only engages with, but also challenges squarely, the canonical texts and established understanding of Ryukyu and Okinawa. Relevant both academically and at the current historical and political juncture, Smits’s book will surely be celebrated as his magnum opus.” “Shinnosuke Takahashi, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

Gregory Smits The Ryukyu Islands

The Ryukyu Islands

A New History from the Stone Age to the Present

  • Auteur: Gregory Smits (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van Okinawa en de Japanse Riukiu-eilanden
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: The University of Chicago Press
  • Verschijnt: 24 november 2025
  • Omvang: 464 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van Okinawa en de Riukiu-eilanden

The first comprehensive history of the Ryukyu Islands region in English.

The Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan consist of around 160 islands and are home to about 1.5 million inhabitants. Across the islands’ history, sea-lanes and trade patterns have connected them to the East China Sea region, giving them a unique vantage point on the region’s changes and making them a useful lens through which to view and understand those transformations.

In this book, Gregory Smits marshals his expertise to canvass the environmental, political, and social history of this fascinating area, emphasizing the diversity of influences from China, Japan, and Korea that have shaped it. Smits begins by tracing the islands’ early history from the time of the oldest extant human remains, through massive inflows of settlers from Japan, until the emergence of a centralized state in the sixteenth century. He then traces the development of the Ryukyu Kingdom from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, examining its major cultural formations and the interplay of local and external influences driving its evolution. Finally, Smits ushers readers to the modern era, from the end of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 through World War II, the era of American military control, and on to the present. He concludes with their present-day status as a tourist destination affected by ongoing geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. Synthesizing decades of research, this book is an indispensable, comprehensive guide to the islands’ history for scholars and nonspecialists alike.

Gregory Smits is professor of history and Asian Studies at Penn State University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Early Ryukyuan History: A New Model.

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Amerikaanse schrijfster, Autobiografieën Memoires

Elizabeth Miki Brina – Speak, Okinawa

Elizabeth Miki Brina Speak, Okinawa recensie en informatie autobiografisch boek. Op 1 april 2021 verschijnt bij Granta Books die autobiografische boek van schrijfster Elizabeth Miki Brina. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek beschikbaar of aangekondigd.

Elizabeth Miki Brina – Speak, Okinawa recensie en informatie

Als de redactie het boek leest, kun je op deze pagina de recensie en waardering vinden van Speak, Okinawa, a memoir. Het boek is geschreven door Elizabeth Miki Brina. Daarnaast zijn hier gegevens van de uitgave en bestelmogelijkheden opgenomen. Bovendien kun je op deze pagina informatie lezen over de inhoud dit boek met autobiografische verhalen over de dochter van een Amerikaanse soldaat en een Japanse moeder die opgroeide op het eiland Okinawa.

Elizabeth Miki Brina - Speak, Okinawa Recensie

Speak, Okinawa

  • Schrijfster: Elizabeth Miki Brina (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: memoires
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Granta Books
  • Verschijnt: 1 april 2021
  • Omvang: 289 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook

Recensie en waardering van het boek

  • “Brina captivates in her stunning and intimate debut memoir . . . This nuanced tale goes both wide and deep, and is as moving as it is ambitious. Memoir lovers will be enthralled.” (Publishers Weekly)
  • “Brina recounts, with piercing candidness and clarity, the almost claustrophobic world of an only child and her parents . . . The memoir is also a portrait of the devastating effects of imperialism and racism on a person’s identity, self-worth, and relationships–and offers a perspective on how a person can combat these legacies.” (Akemi Johnson, The Washington Post)

Flaptekst van het boek over Okinawa van Elizabeth Miki Brina

Here’s a story. On the U.S.-occupied island of Okinawa, an American soldier falls in love with a beautiful Japanese woman. He saves her from a life of grinding poverty. They settle in the States, to live out the suburban American Dream with their child.

Here’s another version. The U.S. military has occupied Okinawa since World War Two, after slaughtering a third of the island’s population; the beautiful Japanese woman lives in poverty and marries the soldier as a way to escape.

Here’s a third version. A little girl grows up with a mother who can’t pronounce her name. She meets blood relatives with whom she cannot communicate. She clings to a sense of whiteness that white peers will not let her claim. She is born as the convergence of these conflicting stories and as she grows up she must reclaim her own narrative.

Speak, Okinawa is Elizabeth Miki Brina’s courageous and heart-breaking testament to the struggle for belonging. It is a story about the immigrant experience; it is a story about how it feels to grow up biracial; it is a story about the island of Okinawa, from its first inhabitants to its colonisation by Japan and the United States. But above all, it is a story about reckoning with your history, and the links that tie you to your heritage and give you a sense of home within yourself.

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