Secondly, it covers work in English, French, German and Italian. Much outstanding work has been published in European languages other than English, and in some areas it is essential to take cognizance of it. Work in Russian and other languages has been excluded: in the case of Russian, there are several good bibliographies of work on Japan by Russian scholars (see Adami 1991 and Kirby 1981 in the section Bibliographies and General works).

Thirdly, it includes all post-1945 monographs and books, and some earlier items as well. The bibliographies compiled by von Wenckstern, Nachod and Haenisch provide ample coverage of earlier books.

Fourthly, it includes all articles published in a large range of periodicals devoted to East Asia or Japan. I have also included articles concerning Japanese history from other journals, such as the History of religions, Journal of family history, and Past and present. There must, however, be many such articles I have missed, and I should be grateful if users of this bibliography could draw my attention to omissions so that any future editions can be more comprehensive.

Fifthly, PhD dissertations have mostly been omitted, although I have, quite arbitrarily, included a few favourites, on the ground that the work has never been published; I have also included a few European PhD dissertations and Habilitiation dissertations, for these are customarily published by the universities to which they are submitted. Shulman has compiled several exhaustive bibliographies of dissertations on Japan and reference should be made to those.

I intend to continue keeping this bibliography up to date, and shall be delighted if it is of any use to teachers and researchers working in the field of Japanese history. I welcome criticisms, suggestions for improvement, and notice of items that should be included. Finally, I should like here to express my gratitude to Mrs Zoe Conway Morris who helped me bring it up to date and to Mrs Catherine Ansorge who put it on the web for me.

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,

Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, England