Marius Berthus Jansen (April 11, 1922 – December 10, 2000) was an American academic, historian, and Emeritus Professor of Japanese History at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

.Princeton University, Office of Communications
"Professor Marius Berthus Jansen, scholar of Japanese history, dies,"
December 13, 2000.

Biography

Jansen was born in Vleuten in

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

to Gerarda and Bartus Jansen, a florist who moved his family to

Johnston, Rhode Island Johnston is a New England town, town in Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 29,568 at the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census. Johnston is the site of the Clemence Irons House (1 ...

in the fall of 1923. Jansen grew up in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

and graduated from Princeton in 1943, having majored in European history of the Renaissance and Reformation. The same year, he began serving in the Army, studying Japanese and working in the

Occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...

. He completed his PhD in history at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

in 1950, studying Japan with Edwin O. Reischauer and China with John K. Fairbank. His dissertation dealt with the interactions of the two countries and was published as ''The Japanese and Sun Yat Sen'' in 1954. He was a member of the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

and of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

and president of the

Association for Asian Studies The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The Association provides members with an Ann ...

in 1976. In 1999, Jansen was the first foreigner to be honored with the Distinguished Cultural Merit Award, given by the government of Japan.

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Marius Jansen,

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

encompasses roughly 100+ works in 300+ publications in 12 languages and 13,900+ library holdings. * ''The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen'' (1954) * ''Sakamoto Ryōma and the Meiji Restoration'' (1961) * ''Japan and Communist China in the Next Decade'' (1964) * ''Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization'' (1965) * ''Studies in the institutional history of early modern Japan'' (1968)

John Whitney Hall John Whitney Hall (September 13, 1916 – October 21, 1997)"John Whitney Hall papers, 1930–1999", Yale University Library was an American historian of Japan who specialized in premodern Japanese history. His life work was recognized by the Japan ...

and Marius Jansen, eds. Princeton, Princeton University Press. * ''Japan and its World: Two Centuries of Change'' (1975)
''Japan and China: from War to Peace, 1894–1972''
(1975) * ''Japan in Transition, from Tokugawa to Meiji (1986) *
China in the Tokugawa World
' (1992

DeGruyter 2014) The 1988 Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures * ''Japanese Today: Change and Continuity'' (1995) Edwin O. Reischauer, Marius B. Jansen * '' The Making of Modern Japan'' (2000) Translations: * '' My Thirty-Three Years' Dream'' by Miyazaki Tōten

Honors

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

, 1979. * Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1985. *

Japan Academy The Japan Academy ( Japanese: 日本学士院, ''Nihon Gakushiin'') is an honorary organisation and science academy founded in 1879 to bring together leading Japanese scholars with distinguished records of scientific achievements. The Academy is ...

, 1999 * Person of Cultural Merit, 1999.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan) The , also known as MEXT, is one of the eleven ministries of Japan that compose part of the executive branch of the government of Japan. History The Meiji government created the first Ministry of Education in 1871. In January 2001, the former ...

''Culture 2000''.
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jansen, Marius 1922 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers American Japanologists Princeton University faculty Princeton University alumni Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure Dutch emigrants to the United States Presidents of the Association for Asian Studies Persons of Cultural Merit Harvard University alumni People from Vleuten-De Meern American male non-fiction writers