Memorial Minute for Akira Iriye, 91 - Harvard Gazette

"I still remember the day when our classroom teacher told us to bring a brush and ink so as to erase sections that were considered unacceptable to the occupation authorities. . . . It seemed to us that what our teachers (as well as our parents and other elders) taught us yesterday was no longer true today. . . . In retrospect, that experience may have had a great deal to do with my decision to become a historian."

"The life of Akira Iriye, Charles Warren Professor of American History, Emeritus, who died in Jan. 2026 at the age of 91, was profoundly shaped by the forces of 20th-century international history. He, in turn, transformed the writing of that history."

"Born in Japan in 1934, Iriye was in the first grade when the Pacific War began and in the fifth grade when it ended in 1945. More than seven decades later, he recalled his shock when the U.S.-led occupation authorities in Japan ordered that school history textbooks be completely rewritten:"

"After high school, Iriye won a scholarship to come to the United States to study at Haverford College, a small liberal arts school near Philadelphia. There he encountered Wallace MacCaffrey, a historian of Tudor England (and later chair of the Harvard Department of History), who set him on a path to graduate study in history."

Akira Iriye, Charles Warren Professor of American History, Emeritus, died in January 2026 at age 91. Born in Japan in 1934, he experienced the Pacific War as a child and later recalled the U.S.-led occupation authorities ordering Japanese school history textbooks to be completely rewritten. That disruption influenced his decision to become a historian. After high school, he studied in the United States at Haverford College on a scholarship, where he encountered Wallace MacCaffrey, who guided him toward graduate study. He entered Harvard in 1957, shifted to a program focused on American-Far Eastern relations, and studied under Ernest R. May.

Read at Harvard Gazette