Jonathan Michael Clements (born 9 July 1971) is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Koxinga and Qin Shi Huang, as well as monthly opinion columns for Neo magazine. He is also the co-author of encyclopedias of anime and Japanese television dramas.
Books in order of publication:
The Moon in the Pines (2000, reprinted in paperback as Zen Haiku, 2007)
The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917 (1st ed. 2001, 2nd ed. 2006, 3rd ed. 2015, with Helen McCarthy)
The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953 (2003, with Motoko Tamamuro)
The Pirate King: Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty (2004, publ. in paperback as Coxinga, 2005)
Confucius: A Biography (2004, expanded 2nd ed. 2017)
A Brief History of the Vikings (2005)
The First Emperor of China (2006, 2nd ed. 2015)
Wu (2007, 2nd ed. 2014)
Beijing: The Biography of a City (2008, 2nd ed. as An Armchair Traveller’s History of Beijing, 2016; 3rd ed. as A Short History of Beijing, 2022)
Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy (2009)
A Brief History of the Samurai (2010)
Admiral Togo: Nelson of the East (2010)
A Brief History of Khubilai Khan (2010)
Sun Tzu’s Art of War: A New Translation (2012)
An Armchair Traveller’s History of the Silk Road (2013)
Anime: A History (2013, 2nd ed. 2023)
An Armchair Traveller’s History of Finland (2014, 2nd ed. as A Short History of Finland, 2022)
Christ’s Samurai: The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion (2016)
A Brief History of the Martial Arts (2016)
A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shōgun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun (2017)
A Brief History of China: Dynasty, Revolution and Transformation: From the Middle Kingdom to the People’s Republic (2019)
The Emperor’s Feast: A History of China in Twelve Meals (2021)
Japan at War in the Pacific: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire in Asia (1868–1945) (2022)
Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan (2024)
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