Historian Thomas Conlan receives commendation from Japan’s Foreign Minister

Princeton University historian Thomas Conlan has received a Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation for promoting Japanese studies in the United States. 

Conlan, a professor of East Asian studies and history, has taught at Princeton since 2013. He is an expert on medieval Japanese history with research interests in warfare, political legitimacy and ritual, ethnicity, economy and trade and social change in Japan.

The Foreign Minister’s commendations honor individuals and groups around the world who contribute “to the promotion of friendship between Japan and other countries and areas,” according to the official announcement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Conlan is one of 138 individuals outside Japan being honored with commendations this year.

This award from the Japanese government, he said, is an affirmation that his work "has helped disseminate knowledge about Japan, to make Japan better known and better understood and that Japan appreciates this."   

Conlan said the honor is especially meaningful because it recognizes his books and websites about translated documents and scrolls in ancient warrior culture as an accessible resource not only for scholars but also for students, teachers and the public. 

These include popular books like “Samurai Weapons and Fighting Techniques” (Amber Press, 2022) and “Samurai and the Warrior Culture of Japan, 471-1877: A Sourcebook” (Hackett, 2022), which trace the history and development of samurai warfare over centuries, as well as monographs such as “Kings in All but Name: The Lost History of Ōuchi Rule in Japan, 1350-1569” (Oxford University Press, 2024), which portrays medieval Japan as a multi-ethnic trading state, and most recently, “Kinkakuji and Kitayama: Space, Place, Monuments and Memory in Japan, 1222-1994” (Brill, 2025).

Conlan has also produced multiple interactive websites on these topics and shared them through the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) for middle and high school teachers. He has served as director of Princeton’s chapter of the NCTA since 2022.

His current book projects include “The Oxford Handbook of Ancient and Medieval Japanese History," a chronological overview of Japan’s political, social and economic history through 1700, and “From Lands of Gold to Isles of Silver: Precious Metal, Trade and State Formation in Japan, 400-1700,” for which he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2025.

He has also published dozens of book chapters, reviews and articles in journals including the Journal of Japanese Studies and Japanese Studies.

This semester he is teaching the undergraduate course “The Heike as History and Art” and the graduate seminar “Sources in Ancient and Medieval Japanese History.”

Conlan directed Princeton’s East Asian studies program from 2021 to 2024 and served as director of graduate studies for the Department of East Asian Studies from 2016 to 2018.

His other honors include fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Japan Foundation and the Japanese Ministry of Education.

Conlan earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

He will formally accept his commendation at a reception in December at the Consulate General of Japan in New York City.