Laura Elizabeth Hein

Laura Hein is an American historian of modern Japan. She is the Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of History at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Japanese political culture, economic policy, war memory, and Japan's international relations.

Hein is the author of several books on modern Japanese history and political culture as well as the general editor of The New Cambridge History of Japan.

She earned an MA (1982) and a PhD (1986) in modern Japanese history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she studied under John Dower.

During her doctoral studies she conducted research in Japan, including work as a visiting research fellow at Hosei University in Tokyo.

In addition to her teaching and research, Hein has been active in institutional initiatives related to global and Asian studies at Northwestern University.

Scholarship

Hein's scholarship focuses on the political culture, intellectual history, and economic policy debates of modern Japan. Much of her work explores the relationship between economic ideas, political institutions, and social change in the twentieth century.

Her second book Reasonable Men, Powerful Words: Political Culture and Expertise in Twentieth-Century Japan (2004) analyzes the role of economists and intellectual networks in shaping policy debates in modern Japan.

In her third book, Post-Fascist Japan: Political Culture in Kamakura after World War II (2018), Hein examines how civic leaders and intellectuals in the city of Kamakura sought to rebuild democratic political culture after the end of the Second World War.

In addition to her monographs, Hein has co-edited several volumes on war memory, Okinawa, and transnational cultural history.

She also serves as general editor of The New Cambridge History of Japan, a multi-volume reference work published by Cambridge University Press.

Selected works

Books

Edited volumes