Non-fiction & Reference

Dear tropers:

I'm interested in Japan' culture and I want to know more about it's history. Could any of you recommend me a good book in english on the subject? I'd appreciate a relatively simple book, for I am not a history expert or academic, only an amateur who wants to become familiar with the basics of Japan's history.

Thank you very much.

Moved to media recs.

i don't think this is what media recs is for

OP: Are you looking for reference books or simply books that use Japan as a setting that you can get ideas from. We're trying to find the place where you'll get the most helpful responses.

Thank you mr. moderator. I´m searching books about the history of Japan, to widen my paltry knowledge about it (which mostly comes from anime series as rurouni kenshin). I think it's more appropiate to say I'm looking for a reference book.

Ok, I've modified the thread title to make that clear. For now we'll leave it here.

Welp, you can always go to the primary sources.

Autobiographical account of a 19th century samurai.

Thanks a lot :D

Stephen R Turnbull for his works on the Samurai period.

I don't want to start a new topic all necessarly, so I post it here.

I would need some book about Greek/Roman (but mostly Greek) for my OEL manga. It features a lot of elements from Greek mithology (similarly as Eva did with Judeochristian and Rah Xephon did with Mayan), starting with using the names of Gods/Titans from the source for the heroes (eg. the title character is Prometheus). And I want to do my research well, I'm still writing it's background (for a year at least), but I didn't started into it deeply because the lack of knowledge, and my art skills also need some improvement.