Mr. Ozawa details a variety of ideas to reform and modernize Japan's economy, political system, and society. He advocates more freedom (and responsibility) for the lives of all Japanese. He thinks the government patronizes the citizenry and treats them like dependent children. Mr. Ozawa believes that the Japanese people should be given more freedom to decide how to live their lives. However, he emphasizes that more freedom will require individual citizens to take responsibility for their own fate.

Part of the acclaimed Time/Life World War Two series and one of the more hard to find titles in the series, this book provides an amazing detailed history of the later stages of the Pacific War. Some of the finest photos of any WWII series, this book truly should be part of any comprehensive personal WWII reference library.

After using incense for many years I found Japanese incense is the best among all. They only use herbs, spice and wood without any sythetic materials. The scents are very subtle and pleasing.

This book takes you through the history of Japanese incense. Your find that the most comment joss stick incense only has one houndred year history. Before then, Japanese burn woodchips, kneaded incense and granulated incense. From this, the book of incense takes you to a wonderful world of koh-do, incense ceremony.

Maybe you have heard of tea ceremony before. Incense ceremony is even more poetic, elegant and fun. This book explain how the ceremony is set up with pictures of beautiful utensils and instruments.

If you are a incense lover and want to experience a higher level of enjoying incense, the book of incense is a must read.

I study the art of the samurai. And I found this book very informative and usful. I highly recomend this book for all those people interested in samurai and the unique ways. Steven Turnball is the expert on samurai and you can't go wrong with any of his books

The Boy Who Drew Cats is a little hard to classify; it is both a ghost story and a monster story. I first read this story when I was about ten years old, and I have never forgotten it. This is a great story for Halloween, and a wonderful story if you love cats. It's sure to make you appreciate your own feline companion.

Reading this book is like taking a long, leisurely walk alongside a man of remarkable intelligence who never flaunts what he knows or boasts about his sensitivity. Yet his poems are intimate, candid, involving, and easy to understand without ever simplifying the complexities and perplexities of a life lived with eyes wide open. Some of the poems -- "Caitlin," for example, and "Intensive Care" -- are shadowed by death and mortal illness, but Featherstone does what only the best of poets can do: he shapes experience so that its container is beautiful and subtle, and that, instead of being depressing, is a form of exaltation.

I must first say that i am not by any means an avid reader. Normally it would take me a month to get through a hundred pages. This book was the exception. I was completely absorbed by the contents of this book. Things that have been said to me over my 12 years of Aikido experience were finally made clear. I felt I had truly learned something after finishing this book and I plan on using that knowledge to teach my students more about what it is we are trying to accomplish in the dojo and in life.

Thanks John for such a wonderful book. Truly enlightening.

I feel foolish praising such a small book to high heaven. But, I must say that this book is a fascinating read. I bought it during my first business trip to Japan and couldn't put it down.

The book's author, an American, has lived in Japan for 50 years. It's clear that he knows the language and the culture. Moreover, he also has kept in touch with the States, and still has the ability to communicate with an American audience. As I said, the book is small. It's only half the physical dimensions of an ordinary book. It is about 170 pages in length. There are 64 chapters, so each chapter is only 2-3 pages long. Each chapter is like a short essay on some minute but nonetheless important detail about Japanese business culture, or advice on how to successfully interface with it. Some of the chapter titles are : The Role of the Greeting Ritual, The Name Card System, How to Recognize "No," The Importance of Going to Japan, Making the First Contact, Seeing Behind the Facade, The Importance of Following up, How to Use Interpreters, Dealing at the Negotiating Table, More Mistakes Foreigners Make, and Mastering the Art of Business at Night. Each of these short chapters is very well written.

The author has obviously advised many foreign companies on how to approach the Japanese and how to get past all the suspicion and barriers that prevent the Japanese from establishing a formal relationship with a foreign firm. His descriptions of how the Japanese protocol functions, how the Japanese company functions, the importance of etiquette, the all-important socializing between potential business partners, the Japanese sense of caution, their fixation on outward appearance, their "group think" mentality, their concern that everything be right and that everyone be comfortable with any new venture before it can begin, and even his description of how Buddhism affects the Japanese business mentality, singularly and in toto indicate that the author really knows what he is talking about.

I've lived a year or more in four different countries, and written about the culture of three of them. It's hard to write about a culture in a way that does not sound like criticism or like proselytizing. Yet, Boye De Mente manages to do so. The reader becomes far more sophisticated in a couple of hours than (s)he was before picking up the book. I was so impressed that after reading this book, I ordered another by the same author. I'll definitely read this book again before my next business trip to Japan.

This is an outstanding work and provides both the lay reader and the scholar with a comprehensive discussion of Medieval Japan with all its complexities, richness, and fascinating detail. Understanding Japanese history is a challenge and this work provides an excellent and detailed background of the feudal period.

Although it may seem a bit dated by todays standards, this book, I feel, sheds a great deal of light on the who, what, when, where, why, and how of our love-hate relationship with the car,especially in the USA. For those of you out there who have fond memories of your father's old La Salle, Bel Air, or yes even his Edsel, you'll be pleasantly surprised at what this tome has to offer. And for those who want to know what happened to the "Big Three," you just might find a clue or two here as well.