was an American historian.

Biography

A nisei, Najita was raised in Hawaii. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1958, and was named a

Woodrow Wilson Fellow The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation) is a nonpartisan, non-profit based in Princeton, New Jersey that aims to strengthen American democracy by “cultivating the talent, ideas, ...

. While in Grinnell, he became a member of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. Najita completed a doctorate at

Harvard University 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 1965. Upon finishing his studies, Najita began teaching at

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

. He left Carleton in 1966, and became an associate professor at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. In 1969, Najita joined the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

faculty, and was later named a Robert S. Ingersolll Distinguished Service Professor in History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Over the course of his career, Najita received a

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 ...

in 1981, and was named to 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 ...

in 1993. Grinnell College honored Najita with an alumni award in 1998. Five years after his retirement from the institution, the

inaugurated the Tetsuo Najita Distinguished Lecture series in 2007. Najita died at his home in Kamuela, Hawaii, on 11 January 2021, after a long illness.

Bibliography

* Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905-1915 (Harvard University Press, 1967). * Japan: the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Prentice-Hall, 1974). * Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan: the Kaitokudo Merchant Academy of Osaka (University of Chicago Press, 1987). * Ordinary Economies in Japan: a Historical Perspective, 1750-1950 (University of California Press, 2009). * Tokugawa Political Writings, (Cambridge University Press, 1998). * Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period, 1600-1868: Methods and Metaphors, co-edited with Irwin Scheiner, (University of Chicago Press, 1978). * Conflict in Modern Japanese History: the Neglected Tradition, co-edited with J. Victor Koschmann, (Princeton University Press, 1982).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Najita, Tetsuo 1936 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians American Japanologists Historians of Japan Grinnell College alumni Harvard University alumni Carleton College faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty University of Chicago faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American writers of Japanese descent Hawaii people of Japanese descent 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Presidents of the Association for Asian Studies American academics of Japanese descent American male non-fiction writers