Marius Jansen — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

First foreigner honored with Japan's Distinguished Cultural Merit Award (1999)
Emeritus Professor of Japanese History at Princeton University
Authored over 100 works, including 'The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen' (1954) and 'The Making of Modern Japan' (2000)
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
President of the Association for Asian Studies in 1976
Completed PhD in history at Harvard in 1950

Biography

Marius Berthus Jansen (April 11, 1922 – December 10, 2000) was an American academic and historian. Born in Vleuten, Netherlands, his family moved to Rhode Island in 1923, and he grew up in Massachusetts. Jansen graduated from Princeton University in 1943, majoring in European history.

The same year, he began serving in the Army, where he studied Japanese and worked in the Occupation of Japan. He went on to complete his PhD in history at Harvard University in 1950, studying Japan with Edwin O.