was a Japanese historian who specialized in Japanese history and history of Southeast Asia.

Early life

Samurai attended the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

and obtained a PhD in Literature and also a PhD in Agriculture. He also received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Vietnam.Yumio Sakurai, Chairman of the Japan-Vietnam Researchers Conference, died ''Asahi Shimbun'' December 19, 2012

Publications

Author

*''The Formation of Vietnamese villages.: Village Shared Fields = Historical Development of Condien System" =ベトナム村落の形成——村落共有田=コンディエン制の史的展開 ''Betonamu sonraku no keisei'') (Sōbunsha, 1987) *"The Melancholy of Hanoi" ( 1989) * ("Green Field: Walking the History of Southeast Asia" =『緑色の野帖——東南アジアの歴史を歩く』 (Mekong 1997) * "People living in rice: the baldness of the sun, the kindness of forests and water" = 『米に生きる人々——太陽のはげまし、森と水のやさしさ』

Shueisha is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Shueisha is the largest publishing company in Japan. It was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The ...

2000) * "History of Southeast Asia" (The

Open University of Japan is a distance learning university which has students from all over Japan; it accepted its first students in 1985. History Although founded by the national government initiative with a single-issue law and heavily subsidized by the government, i ...

2002) * "Pre-modern Southeast Asia" (The Open University of Japan 2006)

Coauthor or co-editor

* (with Yoshiaki Ishizawa) "Modern History of Southeast Asia (3) Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos". (東南アジア現代史（3）ヴェトナム・カンボジア・ラオス; editor: Yoshiaki Ishizawa) (Yamakawa Publishing Co., Ltd., 1977) ( Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1977) * (

Yoneo Ishii was a Japanese historian who specialized in the study of Thailand. Biography Ishii was born in Tokyo, Japan. After excepting a recommendation by his teacher in learning a Thai language, he went to Thailand. There, he was enrolled into the Chulal ...

) "Visual Version" World History (12) Formation of the Southeast Asian World "(

Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...

, 1985) * (Yoshiaki Ishizawa, Noboru Kiriyama) "World History from the Region (4) Southeast Asia" (

Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. The ''Asahi Shimbun'' is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the ''Yom ...

, 1993)

Editor

* "Vietnam I Want to Know More" ( Koubundou Publishers, 1989 / 2nd Edition, 1995) * "Iwanami Lecture: History of Southeast Asia (4) Development of Early Modern Southeast Asian Countries" (

Iwanami Shoten is a Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo.Louis Frédéric, ''Japan Encyclopedia'', Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 409. Iwanami Shoten was founded in 1913 by Iwanami Shigeo. Its first major publication was Natsume Sōseki's novel '' ...

, 2001)

Co-editor

* ( Tadayo Watabe) "Rice Culture in Gangnam, China: Its Interdisciplinary Study" ( Japan Broadcast Publishing Association, 1984) * (Yoneo Ishii) "History of Southeast Asia (1) Continental Region" (Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1999) * ( Shiro Momoki) "Vietnamese Encyclopedia" ( Dohosha, 1999)

Translation Editor

George Cœdès George Cœdès (; 10 August 1886 – 2 October 1969) was a French scholar of southeast Asian archaeology and history. Biography Cœdès was born in Paris to a family known as having settled in the region of Strasbourg before 1740. His ancestor ...

, History of Indochina Civilization ( Misuzu Shobo, 1969)

Footnotes

External links

"The Yumio SAKURAI Collection"
1945 births 2012 deaths 20th-century Japanese historians 21st-century Japanese historians Academic staff of the University of Tokyo {{Japan-historian-stub