Category: Formation Essay

All historians are surely accidental historians.  At the most basic level, the opportunity to be a historian—at least in the more conventional understanding of the term—is the consequence of multiple accidents of timing, circumstance, and unequal opportunity: success in examinations, in grant applications, and simply being in a particular place at a particular time. But,…

My “formative years” as a historian go back to the 1950s when I studied British history in college and then U.S. and East Asian history as a graduate student.  Actually, however, it may be more correct to say that my interest in history goes back to the 1940s when the Second World War was fought…

My becoming an international historian was, as Marxists would say, overdetermined—but nevertheless I took a long time to determine it.  I did not so much decide to study international history as make a series of incremental decisions, usually driven by advice or inspiration from an intellectual mentor, that led me along that path.  So even…

As someone with my feet in two fields—labor history and diplomatic history—I’ve often felt more comfortable in the former than the latter.  To labor historians, the importance of research on the international perspectives and activities of workers and labor activists has long been a given.  By contrast, this proposition has been a tough sell in…

I turned seventy on April 20, 2020.  There is an old saying in China: “A man seldom lives to be seventy years old.”  You can’t help but sigh helplessly. It is not uncommon that old age clouds your memory.  Perhaps, too, it is still too early to pass the final judgment on me.  But when…

In retrospect I trace the sources of my research and teaching interests to Mr. Delaney’s eighth grade social studies class at Parker Junior High School in Reading, Massachusetts.  Not that I was particularly interested in social studies or history in those days.  Like everyone else in class, I did my best to earn the reward…

I have had a somewhat unique professional career.  I was born in Japan and graduated from a Japanese university.  I came to the United States to study Russian history, received my Ph.D. in the United States, and taught in the United States and Japan.  I acquired American citizenship.  I have made numerous trips to the…

I entered Springfield College in the fall of 1963 intending to become a professional baseball player and, secondarily, a high school history teacher.  Two things happened in my junior year that drastically altered my plans.  First, Frank Carpenter, a former China specialist in the State Department, came to Springfield to teach Chinese and Modern European…

Like many others, I was a child of U.S. foreign policy.  During the Second World War my mother, while a teenager, found work as a civilian secretary for the Army to help support her invalid father.  After the war, once she turned 21, the Army sent her to work at bases in occupied Japan and…