Y. Tak Matsusaka

• Associate Professor
• Founders 210
• (781) 283-2596
• ymatsusa@wellesley.edu

Tak Matsusaka is the department's Japan specialist and came to Wellesley in 1993. He received a B.A. in biology from Brandeis University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard in 1993. His regular course offerings include History 269 (Japan and the Great Powers in East Asia). He is also involved in the design and teaching of courses in the International Relations-History program, including History 205 and History 395 (Origins of Global Divergence). Prof. Matsusaka has occasionally taught seminars and lecture courses on Asian American history, an area of continuing interest. He has published a study of the South Manchuria Railway Company, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932 (Harvard Asia Center, 2001), and is working on a second book tentatively entitled "Democracy, the Arms Race, and the Politics of Imperialism in Japan, 1873-1922." He resides in Brookline and is married to Suzanne Lee, principal of the Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston.

History Department