Japan: a land plagued by volcanoes, earthquakes and typhoons, yet blessed with a climate suitable for all manner of agriculture and forestry, and positioned where ocean currents collide and bring an abundance of the ocean’s resources to its people; a country which moved quickly from an agrarian pre-industrial society to become one of the world’s great economic powerhouses in only a few decades, spoiling water, air and land in the process, bringing misery to many of its people; a country with expansionist desires, colonizing neighboring lands, leading to war, defeat, destruction and, for the first time in history, nuclear devastation and its aftermath; a land and its people which share a remarkable resilience and ability to evaluate and correct their mistakes and renew their trajectory towards a better future.

Japan: a land plagued by volcanoes, earthquakes and typhoons, yet blessed with a climate suitable for all manner of agriculture and forestry, and positioned where ocean currents collide and bring an abundance of the ocean’s resources to its people; a country which moved quickly from an agrarian pre-industrial society to become one of the world’s great economic powerhouses in only a few decades, spoiling water, air and land in the process, bringing misery to many of its people; a country with expansionist desires, colonizing neighboring lands, leading to war, defeat, destruction and, for the first time in history, nuclear devastation and its aftermath; a land and its people which share a remarkable resilience and ability to evaluate and correct their mistakes and renew their trajectory towards a better future.

Introduction: Perspectives of Environmental History in Japan (Fujihara Tatsushi)
Part 1: Topology of Environmental History
Chapter 1: Cultural Landscapes in Japan (Uesugi Kazuhiro)
Chapter 2: Japan’s Colonial Environments (John Hayashi)
Chapter 3: National Parks, Nature Conservation, War: The Development of the National Parks System in Japan, 1907-1945 (Nishimura Takahiro)
Part 2: Pollution Incidents/Disasters
Chapter 4: The Ashio Affair: The Emergence of Industrial Pollution as a Social, Political and Environmental Issue in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Cyrian Pitteloud)
Chapter 5: Two Outbreaks of Minamata Disease and the Struggle for Human Rights (Seki Reiko)
Chapter 6: Black Rain, Lawsuits and Compensation: Radiation in the Environment and Human Exposure in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Nakao Maika)
Chapter 7: Environmental Problems Caused by the Shinkansen in Nagoya City (Aoki Soko)
Part 3: Between Nature and Humans
Chapter 8: The Epidemiological Landscape and Medical Theories: Focusing on a History of Smallpox in Early Modern Japan (Kozai Toyoko)
Chapter 9: Between Nature and Human: The History of the Use of “Night Soil” in Japan (Yuzawa Noriko)
Chapter 10: Agricultural Technology and the Environment in Modern Japan (Fujihara Tatsushi)
Part 4: Seas, Lakes and Shores
Chapter 11: Regional Environmental History: The Lake Biwa Area (Hashimoto Michinori)
Chapter 12: Tokyo Bay in the 20th Century: Life, Production and Environment (Kobori Satoru)
Chapter 13: Tuna Fisheries and Thermonuclear Tests, 1954-1963 (Yuka Moriguchi Tsuchiya)
Part 5: Forestry
Chapter 14: Japanese Swidden Agriculture: Environmental History of Grasslands, Forests and Fire (Komeie Taisaku)
Chapter 15: A History of Tree Planting in Modern Japan: Resource Utilization and Environment Conservation (Takemoto Taro); Chapter 16: Empire Forestry Endures: The Development and Continuity of Japanese Forestry in Southeast Asia, 1930-1970 (Nakashima Koji)