Ian Nish

In Japan, Nish had collected material on the Anglo-Japanese alliance which had been formalized in 1902.

With that material in hand, he moved to SOAS to begin work on his doctorate.

At SOAS, he became a student member of the Japan Society of London and the China Society.

Nish's first academic appointment was to the history department of the University of Sydney.

Nish was the Honorary Chief British Coordinator of the Anglo-Japanese History Project; and, to mark the centenary of the Russo-Japanese War, compiled and introduced an eight-volume collection of important historical works and documents, The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5 (2004).

Nish died on 31 July 2022, at the age of 96.

Nish suggests that "a foreign scholar of Japan is often only a middleman attempting to distill the ideas of Japanese scholars".

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Nish, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 200+ works in 300+ publications in 4 languages and 7,000+ library holdings.

Ian Hill Nish CBE (3 June 1926 – 31 July 2022) was a British academic.

A specialist in Japanese studies, he was Emeritus Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

His scholarship relating to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japanese foreign policy and Anglo-Japanese relations in the twentieth century has garnered international renown.

Nish was born in Burghmuirhead, Edinburgh, on 3 June 1926.

World War II gave opportunity to many young non-Japanese to become specialists in Japanese studies, and Nish became one of them.

His first encounter with Japan came when he was still an Edinburgh schoolboy.

His school announced a government program for volunteers who wanted to learn difficult Oriental languages, but he was too young then to apply.

Three years later — not yet 18 but in the army and, with infantry and artillery training, posted to India — he put in for a crash course in Japanese and was accepted.

The School of Japanese Studies had been opened in an old mansion in Simla, and it later moved to Karachi.

The program had strong courses in Japanese language, but nothing in Japanese history or the nature of Japanese society.

With the end of the war and the end of the course, the "semi-linguists" were sent to the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center in Johore Bahru, Malaya.

The course graduates were given translation duties, and were used as interpreters at Changi prison.

Within a few months, Nish was ordered to Japan.

In Kure, Nish found himself in the headquarters of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center.

Amongst varied duties in the Translation Section, he was assigned to translate regional newspapers.

In that role, he and others were not called upon to draw on their knowledge of the older 'kanji' which they had learned, since a working list of 1,800 characters had been specified by the Ministry of Education for use in the press from New Year's Eve, 1946.

Two years later, Nish faced a choice.

He could go to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and begin a degree in Japanese, or he could return to Edinburgh to pick up his interrupted honors degree in history.

He chose the second option, and was awarded his M.A. from Edinburgh University three years later.

He spent six months in Japan on his way to Australia in 1957.

He remembers that Sydney students at that time were becoming more interested in Japan.

As he recalls, the courses in Asian history were ranked as popular during this period.

Nish stayed in Australia until 1962.

On his return to England, he embarked on 30 years of "congenial teaching" as a Japan specialist in the international history department at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Two of his specialized courses there resulted in two monograph publications: "Origins of the Russo-Japanese War" and "Japan's Struggle with Internationalism".

Nish pursued his own research into the history of Anglo-Japanese relations, which led to two more books.

He was an active member of the Japan Society; and he was secretary of the British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS).

For three years from 1985 to 1988, he was president of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS).

Nish retired in 1991.

He then accepted the position of honorary senior research associate of the Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD).

This position proved invaluable in enabling Nish to complete certain research projects which were crowded out by administrative chores during his last years of teaching.

In 2001-2002, two volumes of his collected writings were simultaneously published in Britain and Japan.