Those who write about history do so at their peril. The difficulties are manifest: how to contribute anything meaningful, to be divergent but remain credible and to research the past without losing sight of the present.
Academic accounts are apt to view history as a yellowing bone fragment, a conveniently inanimate object that can be passed around for inspection, then returned to its glass case. R. Taggart Murphy, the author of ¡°Japan and the Shackles of the Past,¡± is an academic himself (a professor at the University of Tsukuba), but writes with flair and an ear for style ¡ª qualities often absent in such circles. The author¡¯s view that Japan remains a prisoner of its past is hardly new, but his contention that it is complicit in its own incarceration puts a rather different spin on the subject.
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