George B. Sansom
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Sir George Bailey Sansom (28 November 1883 – 8 March 1965) was a British diplomat and historian of
pre-modern Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventi ...
, particularly noted for his historical surveys and his attention to Japanese society and culture.


Early life

Sansom was born in London, where his father was a
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, but was educated in France and Germany, including the University of Giessen and the University of Marburg. He passed an examination for the Diplomatic Service in September 1903.


Diplomatic service

Sansom first arrived in Japan in 1904 and was attached to the British legation in Tokyo to learn the Japanese language. While he was working as private secretary to Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald the legation gained higher status by becoming an embassy, and Sansom was present during the negotiations for the renewal of the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance The first was an alliance between Britain and Japan, signed in January 1902. The alliance was signed in London at Lansdowne House on 30 January 1902 by Lord Lansdowne, British Foreign Secretary, and Hayashi Tadasu, Japanese diplomat. A dip ...
in 1905. He remained in Japan for most of his diplomatic career, serving in consulates around Japan, where he also acquired proficiency in Japanese dialects. Sansom began his literary career in 1911 with a translation of the ''
Tsurezuregusa is a collection of essays written by the Japanese monk Kenkō (兼好) between 1330 and 1332. The work is widely considered a gem of medieval Japanese literature and one of the three representative works of the zuihitsu genre, along with ''The P ...
'' by
Yoshida Kenkō was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is ''Tsurezuregusa'' (''Essays in Idleness''), one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature. Kenko wrote during the Muromachi and Kamakura periods. Life and work Ken ...
, a major text of the
Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle betwee ...
. Sansom was on leave in London in 1915, but was declared unfit for military service in the First World War. He was assigned by the Foreign Office to the War Office to undertake political espionage, and was sent to Archangel in Russia. He was married the following year. Sansom returned to Japan in January 1920 as Secretary to Sir Charles Eliot, whose interest in Japanese Buddhism spurred Sansom's own interest in Japanese history and culture. He was thus encouraged to follow in the footsteps of his scholarly predecessors among British diplomats in Japan, such as Ernest Mason Satow, William George Aston and John Harington Gubbins. The position also gave Sansom access to many Japanese scholars as well as political leaders. Sansom was promoted to Commercial Secretary from 1923. In 1926 Sansom was awarded the CMG (Companion of the
Order of St. Michael and St. George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...
). He was divorced in June 1927, but remarried at the end of May the following year. Also in 1928, Sansom published ''An Historical Grammar of Japanese''. He followed this in 1931 with ''Japan: A Short Cultural History'' and in 1935 with a new edition of Sir Charles Eliot's ''Japanese Buddhism'', which had been left incomplete at the time of Eliot's death. In January 1930 Sansom was promoted to Commercial Counsellor, in charge of improving trade relations. He visited the Philippines in 1932. In 1933 Sir
Francis Oswald Lindley Sir Francis Oswald Lindley (12 June 1872 – 17 August 1950) was a British diplomat who was HM Consul-General in Russia in 1919, British High Commissioner in Vienna 1919–1920, Ambassador to Austria 1920–1921, Ambassador to Gre ...
assigned him the task of negotiating a commercial treaty between British India and Japan. Sansom was made a member of the Japan Academy in 1934 and in 1935 he was promoted to Knight Commander within the Order of St. Michael and St. George. As relations between Britain and Japan continued to deteriorate Sansom's reputation as a Japanophile came to be perceived as a liability. Although the Ambassador, Sir
Robert Clive Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for laying the foundation of the British ...
, continued to rely on Sansom, his successor from 1937,
Robert Craigie The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
, was less receptive to his advice. In 1935 Sansom took a leave of absence of six months, which he spent at Columbia University in New York as a lecturer. While he was on leave in London he announced his retirement from the Diplomatic Service with effect from September 1940. He agreed to return to Japan for one more mission before taking up a position waiting for him at Columbia University.


Wartime service

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Sansom was sent to Washington, D.C. and then to Singapore, speaking to leading officials in the Royal Navy as an adviser on economic warfare. He was later appointed as a civilian representative on the Far East War Council. Evacuated to Java after the fall of Singapore, he was attached to the headquarters of General
Archibald Wavell Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, (5 May 1883 – 24 May 1950) was a senior officer of the British Army. He served in the Second Boer War, the Bazar Valley Campaign and the First World War, during which he was wounded ...
, but after the fall of Java to the Japanese Sansom was evacuated to Australia, and from there back to Washington, D.C., where he remained until the end of the war as a Minister Plenipotentiary attached to the British Embassy.


Post-war career

Sansom was the British representative on the Far Eastern Commission, which formally oversaw the Allied Occupation of Japan. He revisited Japan in 1946. Sansom retired in 1947, and was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. From then until 1953 he was a professor of Japanese studies at Columbia University and also became the first Director of the East Asia Institute. He published ''The Western World and Japan: A Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures'' in 1949, and visited Japan in 1950 to give a series of lectures. In 1955 Sansom retired to Palo Alto, California, home of
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
which had published his ''Japan: A Short Cultural History'' in 1931, and also published ''A History of Japan'' in three volumes, between 1958 and 1963. He was made an honorary fellow of the Japan Academy in 1951. Sansom died on 8 March 1965 while on a visit to Tucson, Arizona. His second wife,
Katherine Sansom Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...
, herself an author on Japanese topics, published a memoir consisting primarily of Sansom's letters and papers, and her own remembrances.


Works

* Sansom, George Bailey. (1911). ''The Tsuredzure Gusa of Yoshida No Kaneyoshi, Being the Meditations of a Recluse in the 14th Century.'' * _________. (1928). ''An Historical Grammar of Japanese.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. ** 1946—2nd edition by Oxford University Press, Oxford. ** 1968—reprinted by Clarendon Press, Oxford. ASIN: B0007ITUYC ** 1995—reprinted by
RoutledgeCurzon Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, London. (cloth) * _________. (1931)
''Japan: A Short Cultural History.''
London: Cresset Press, 1931, and New York: D. Appleton, 1931. * _________. (1933). ''Trade Conditions in the Philippine Islands.'' ASIN B0008D0H5W * _________. (1942). ''Postwar Relations with Japan.'' (Secretariat paper) ASIN B0007ETL9K * _________. (1949). ''The Western World and Japan: A Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures.'' New York: Random House. ** 1973—reprinted
Vintage Books Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Hous ...
, New York. * _________. (1952). ''Japan: A Short Cultural History.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press. (cloth) (paper) * _________. (1958)
''A History of Japan to 1334.''
Stanford: Stanford University Press. ; * _________. (1961)
''A History of Japan: 1334–1615.''
Stanford: Stanford University Press. ; * _________. (1963)
''A History of Japan, 1615–1867.''
Stanford: Stanford University Press. ; * _________. (1984). ''Japan in World History.'' Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing. ; ASIN B0007IZ02I (cloth) eprinted 1986. (paper)* _________. (19__). ''The Reminiscences of Sir George Sansom.'' ASIN B0007J22K0


References

*Frederic, Louis (2002). ''Japan Encyclopedia''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. *Howes, John F. (1975) "Sir George Sansom and Japan", Review of ''Pacific Affairs.'' University of British Columbia. *Sansom, Katharine (1972). ''Sir George Sansom and Japan: A Memoir''. Tallahassee, Florida: The Diplomatic Press Inc. * Winchester, Simon. (2008). ''The Man Who Loved China: the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom.'' New York:
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. *Ian Nish, 'Sansom, Sir George Bailey (1883–1965)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 20 March 2013


External links



* ttp://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=35944&back= Oxford Biographical Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Sansom, George Bailey 1883 births 1965 deaths Columbia University faculty Historians of Japan British Japanologists Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire British diplomats 20th-century British historians