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 research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

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

Biography

Jansen was born in

Vleuten Vleuten is a former village in the Dutch province of Utrecht. Today, it is a neighbourhood of the city of Utrecht, and lies about 6 km west from the city centre. Vleuten has a railway station on the line between Utrecht and Woerden Woerde ...

the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

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

Johnston, Rhode Island Johnston is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 29,568 at the 2020 census. Johnston is the site of the Clemence Irons House (1691), a stone-ender museum, and the only landfill in Rhode Island. Incorpora ...

in the fall of 1923. Jansen grew up in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

and graduated from

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

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. He took his PhD in history at

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

in 1950, studying Japan with Edwin O. Reischauer and China with

John K. Fairbank John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of Ch ...

. 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 A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, mi ...

and of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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 ...

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 Annua ...

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., doing business as OCLC, 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 ...

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 OCL ...

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)

Honors

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, 1979. *

Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest ...

, 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 c ...

, 1999 *

Person of Cultural Merit is an official Japanese recognition and honor which is awarded annually to select people who have made outstanding cultural contributions. This distinction is intended to play a role as a part of a system of support measures for the promotion of ...

, 1999. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan)
''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