Ian Nish

Ian Hill Nish CBE (born 3 June 1926) is a British academic, a specialist in Japanese studies, and Emeritus Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His scholarship relating to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japanese foreign policy and Anglo-Japanese relations in the twentieth century has garnered international renown.

Nish was born in Burghmuirhead, Edinburgh in 1926.

World War II gave opportunity to many young non-Japanese to become specialists in Japanese studies, and Nish became one of them. His first encounter with Japan came when he was still an Edinburgh schoolboy. His school announced a government program for volunteers who wanted to learn difficult Oriental languages, but he was too young then to apply. Three years later — not yet 18 but in the army and, with infantry and artillery training, posted to India — he put in for a crash course in Japanese and was accepted. The School of Japanese Studies had been opened in an old mansion in Simla, and it later moved to Karachi. The program had strong courses in Japanese language, but nothing in Japanese history or the nature of Japanese society. With the end of the war and the end of the course, the "semi-linguists" were sent to the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center in Johore Bahru, Malaya. The course graduates were given translation duties, and were used as interpreters at Changi prison.

Within a few months, Nish was ordered to Japan. In Kure, Nish found himself in the headquarters of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center. Amongst varied duties in the Translation Section, he was assigned to translate regional newspapers. In that role, he and others were not called upon to draw on their knowledge of the older 'kanji' which they had learned, since a working list of 1,800 characters had been specified by the Ministry of Education for use in the press from New Year's Eve, 1946.

Two years later, Nish faced a choice. He could go to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and begin a degree in Japanese, or he could return to Edinburgh to pick up his interrupted honors degree in history. He chose the second option, and was awarded his M.A. from Edinburgh University three years later. In Japan, Nish had collected material on the Anglo-Japanese alliance which had been formalized in 1902. With that material in hand, he moved to SOAS to begin work on his doctorate. At SOAS, he became a student member of the Japan Society of London and the China Society.

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