Behind the Mask: On Sexual Demons, Sacred Mothers, Transvestites, Gangsters, Drifters, and Other Japanese Cultural Heroes (1983) ISBN 978-0-452-00738-3
Tokyo: Form and Spirit (1986) with James Brandon, Kenneth Frampton, Martin Friedman, Donald Richie ISBN 978-0-8109-1690-6
Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle 1853–1964 (2003) ISBN 978-0-679-64085-1
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (2004) with Avishai Margalit ISBN 978-0-14-303487-2
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006) ISBN 978-1-59420-108-0 winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book.
Commentary on the History of China for the time period of The Last Emperor, The Criterion Collection 2008 DVDs (ASIN: B000ZM1MIW, ISBN 978-1-60465-014-3).
Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (2010) ISBN 978-0-691-13489-5, with some historical examples of the value the separation of religion and national governance with the separation of church and state as one example.
Grenzen aan de vrijheid: van De Sade tot Wilders (Limits to Freedom: From De Sade to Wilders) (2010) – Essay for the Month of Philosophy in the Netherlands.
The Churchill Complex: The Rise and Fall of the Special Relationship and the End of the Anglo-American Order. United Kingdom: Atlantic Books. 2020. ISBN 978-1-78649-465-8.[c]
The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II, Penguin Random House, 2023.