Professor Takao Matsumura
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, CRESC, University of Manchester (2008).
Emeritus, Keio University, Japan
Research interests
My research fields are 1)British Social and Labour History; now researching on the miners'strike of 1984-85 and on the Taff Vale Case, 1900-06. 2) Social and Labour History in Manchuria under the Japanese imperialism,1907-45, focusing on Unit 731 and the germ-warfare, 1931-45 and on the South Manchuria Railway Company,1907-45. 3)A Social History of Mass-Killing in the 20th century, focusing on the Turkish mass-killing of Armenians, 1915-16, and No Gunn Ri case of mass-killing during the Korean War, 1950; 4) Methodology of Social History. As a stream of epistemology of social history I have written articles on G.B.Vico, Hamann, Herder. Michelet and L. Febvre, Ham Sok Hon and Chi Myong Kwan. I am writing on W. Blake, William Morris and E.P. Thompson.
My books written in English are:
- The Labour Aristocracy Revisited?The Victorian Flint Glass Makers, 1850-80, Manchester University Press, 1983
- Japan 1868-1945: From Isolation to Occupation, (co-author with John Benson), Longman, 2001
- Urban Reconstruction in Britain and Japan, 1945-1955: Dreams, Plans and Realities, (co-author with Nick Tiratsoo & others), University of Luton Press, 2002
My recent (2007-) books include:
- A Labour History of Japan’s Imperial Colonies, Fuji Shuppan, Tokyo, 2007
- East Asia: What do they require of Japan (co-editor with K.Takakusaki), Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2007
- Judiciary and History: Seeing the Unit 731 and Germ-warfare in the Courts, (co-editor with H.Yano), Gendai Shokan, Tokyo, 2007
- A Social History of Mass-killing in the 20th Century (co-editor with H.Yano), Mineruva Shobo, Kyoto, 2007
- The Investigation and Research in Manchuria Railway Company: Its Mythology and Reality (co-editor with K. Eda & the other), Aoki Shoten, Tokyo, 2008
Contact Details
email: tkomt@yahoo.co.jp