Aida Yūji

Who was Aida Yūji?

Aida Yūji was a leading Japanese historian specialising in the Renaissance. He was active as a conservative thinker, commentator and major exponent of the Nihonjinron. He was born in Kyōto on 5 March 1916. He graduated from Kyoto University in 1940 and had his Master's degree in history interrupted in 1943, when he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. He fought on the Burmese front against the British as an infantryman. He surrendered to the British Army at the war's end and was detained at Ahlone Camp in the British-controlled Burma. His experiences, especially mental torture in the hands of his captors through their cruel nonchalance towards the Japanese PoWs, are vividly described in his best-selling memoir, Aaron Shūyōjo On his repatriation in 1947, he began to teach at Kobe University. He was appointed full professor at Kyoto University's Humanities Department in 1952. He retired from the University in 1979, when he became an emeritus professor. He died of pneumonia on 17 September 1997.