George Sansom

Sir George Bailey Sansom (1883-1965) was a historian of pre-modern Japan particularly noted for his historical surveys and attention to Japanese society.

Born in Kent and educated in France, he first served in Japan as an advisor and representative of the United Kingdom in 1904, and continued in similar positions for roughly 44 years hence. Knighted in 1935, he served as a member of the staff of the British consulate in Japan from 1939-1941. He was sent to Washington, D.C. and then to Singapore as war approached in 1941, and spoke with some of the top officials of the British Royal Navy the day before the sinking of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, events which mark the beginning of the Pacific War for the UK.

Sansom returned to Washington, D.C. and remained there throughout World War II.

Sansom later taught at Columbia University (1947-1953), though he began teaching Japanese history there in the late 1930s; he became the first director of the East Asian Institute. He retired in Palo Alto, California, home to Stanford University whose Stanford University Press had published his 1931 one-volume history of Japan and which in the late fifties and early sixties published his 3-volume history, still the standard account.

As a scholar of Japanese history and society, he was closely associated with a number of other scholars, including Helen Craig McCullough, the faculty of Stanford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and many others.

Widely regarded as expert at keeping his own opinions absent from his historical writings, his opinions and character were revealed in a memoir published by his wife, Katharine Sansom, in 1972. Consisting primarily of letters and papers written by Sir George, and remembrances on the part of his wife, these memoirs illustrate much of his biographical story, particularly illuminating his experiences in Japan prior to World War II.

Honors

• Order of St. Michael and St. George, Knight Commander -- KCMG)

Works

His clear writing style is readily accessible to a broad international readership:

• Sansom, George Bailey. (1911). The Tsuredzure Gusa of Yoshida No Kaneyoshi. Being the meditations of a recluse in the 14th Century.
• _________. (1928). An Historical Grammar of Japanese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 1946 -- 2nd edition by Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • 1968 -- reprinted by Clarendon Press, Oxford. ASIN: B0007ITUYC
  • 1995 -- reprinted by RoutledgeCurzon, London. 10-ISBN 0-700-70288-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-700-70288-6 (cloth)

• _________. (1931). Japan: A Short Cultural History. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Stanford University Press, 1931
• _________. (1933). Trade conditions in the Philippine Islands. ASIN B0008D0H5W
• _________. (1942). Postwar Relations with Japan. (Secretariat paper) ASIN B0007ETL9K

• _________. (1949). The Western World and Japan A Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures. New York: Random House. 10-ISBN 0-394-45150-3; 13-ISBN 978-0-394-45150-3
  • 1973 -- reprinted Vintage Books, New York. 10-ISBN 0-394-71867-4; 13-ISBN 978-0-394-71867-5
• _________. (1952). Japan: A Short Cultural History. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-804-70952-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-70952-1 (cloth) 10-ISBN 0-804-70954-8; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-70954-5 (paper)
• _________. (1958). A History of Japan to 1334. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-804-70523-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-70523-3; OCLC 224793047
• _________. (1961). A History of Japan: 1334-1615. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-804-70525-9; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-70525-7; OCLC 43483194
• _________. (1963). A History of Japan, 1615-1867. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-8047-0527-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-70527-1; OCLC 173092834
• _________. (1984). Japan in World History. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 4-805-30432-4; ASIN B0007IZ02I (cloth) [reprinted 1986. 10-ISBN 0-804-81510-0; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-81510-9 (paper)]

• _________. (19__). The Reminiscences of Sir George Sansom. ASIN B0007J22K0

References

• Frederic, Louis (2002). "Japan Encyclopedia." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Howes, John F. (1975) Sir George Sansom and Japan, Review of. Pacific Affairs. University of British Columbia.
• Winchester, Simon. (2008). The Man Who Loved China: the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. New York: Harper. 10-ISBN 0-060-88459-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-060-88459-8

See also

• Sansom, Katharine (1972). Sir George Sansom and Japan: A Memoir Tallahassee, Florida: The Diplomatic Press Inc.