This is an excellent book, with a really clear argument and analysis. If you are interested in rural politics, comparative political science, or social movements and rebellions, it is worth checking out.

The insight into the Japanese tax system, Japan's view of deferral, and where planning opportunities lie is phenomenal! For anyone investing in Japan, I would highly recommend that you spend some time with this book and see if it doesn't spark some creative thoughts for your clients.

This dictionary has everything needed in an excellent historical dictionary. Great for purposes of improving individual study of Japan's history.

Frank Dikötter has put together an excellent collection of articles about the development of racial and national identities in China and Japan. Starting from where Western scholars fear to tread but need to go, he asserts in the introduction that dismissing the development of racial (or racist) attitudes in Asia as the mere extension of Western ethnocentrism is not only short-sighted, but dangerous.

Especially as we enter the 21st century as globalization brings nations and ideologies closer together, it is important to understand the historically specific formations of national and racial identity that determines individual identity formation. Splitting the book into two halves, with articles about China leading off the book, the varied articles and analyses are quite insighful and theoretically rigorous.

This is a good first introduction to the subject, and many of the authors in the book can be found elsewhere, some of them having written their own books based on their lines of research. Kosaku Yoshino, Frank Dikötter, Louise Young, and David Goodman have all written works worthy of buying outright.

Of particular interest are the Japan chapters, which outline the development of ideas of racial particularism as the nation reconstructed itself in its program of modernization, the place of the Ainu "other" in this process, the distancing and stigmatizing of Chinese kanbun throughout this process, as well as the turn Japanese ideology took after the forced annexation of Manchukuo. For a detailed exploration of the Chinese formation of national identity, this is a good book, but it goes without saying (although I clearly am) that one should own a copy of Dikötter's The Discourse of Race in Modern China.

Perfect accompanying works to be read alongside this one are the aforementioned book on China, the edited volume Making Majorities, by Dru Gladney, as well as Cultural Nationalism in East Asia, by Harumi Befu. The big man on campus, as it were, is Kosaku Yoshino, who wrote Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan. If you are a scholar of nationalism in Asia, you cannot be without these books. Also of interest would be Michael Robinson's Cultural Nationalism in Korea, any and all works by John Dower, beginning with War Without Mercy, and the book Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema.

As a graduate student specializing in this area, and having just passed my qualifying exams in the area of Nationalism in East Asia, I can say that I have scoured bibliographies and booklists far and wide. This book, along with the others mentioned above, will provide a solid start for the interested scholar.

This is by far the best book in its field. Koplos lived in Japan long enough to have grasped the distictive qualites of the culture that have influenced and continue to influence the arts. Particularly, she shows the influence of traditional architecure, art, etc.on the Japanese sense of space and feeling for natural materials. She also realizes how fluid the Japanese art scene is, how many Japanese artists go back and forth, working in modern sculpture, calligraphy, pottery and ikebana.This book is MUST reading for anyone interested in contemporary Japanese art

"Otogizoshi," a nihilistic anthology based on some Japanese famous folklore by famous novelist, Osamu Dazai. Crackling Mountain, Kachi-Kachi yama in Japanese is originally rather cruel and abuserd falklore, in which a naughty badger kills an old lady and a rabbit revenges for her in cruel way. Here a rabbit is described as a young and capricious woman and gives new lights to this rather absurd and cruel Kachi-Kachi Yama stories.

The book, Crested Kimono, is an excellent example of the potential for the integration of real life experiences with sociological theories. It is also extremely well written and tends to read like a novel. Professor Hamabata, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, divided his book into seven chapters: (1) Boundaries, (2) Perspectives, (3) Households, (4) Death, (5) Authority, (6) Marriage, and (7) Love. I shall briefly describe each of these chapters, making personal comments where it seems necessary. I shall conclude with a general critique. The first chapter, "Boundaries," explained how Professor Hamabata was able to establish relationships with some elite Japanese families-thus making his research possible. When he first arrived in Japan, Hamabata was planning to conduct ethnographic research among top business executives. However, the contacts that he made turned out to be quite superficial. Indeed, Hamabata "wondered why [he] had traveled all the way ! to Tokyo only to hear what could be read in documents available in almost any American University." Moreover, he suffered from two major problems of identity: (1) Was he a Japanese or an American. (2) Was he a sexually available male or a immature student? After deciding to play back-and-forth with the first question, he determined that it would be best (in terms of his study) to assume the identity of a "immature graduate student." Yet, in assuming such an identity, he was soon shut out of the "man's world," which he had hoped to gain access to. However, by spending a lot of time with the wives and children of elite businessmen, he was able to obtain a lot of information on love and marriage-but the importance was yet unclear. In chapter two, "Perspectives," Hamabata discovers that the lives of elite businessmen "cannot be understood apart from the women who act as their partners." This short chapter represents an attempt to demonstrate the legitimacy of basing hi! s study (almost entirely) on observations and interactions ! of elite women and their children. Hamabata wants the reader to believe that his study is somehow advancing beyond the traditional wisdom of sociologists. He wants to go beyond the "neat boundary that sociologists have usually drawn around the family." In short, he is arguing that his idea about Japanese wives has broken new ground. However, the argument that his study is ground-breaking in its initial idea is somewhat misleading. I would agree that his study has indeed added knowledge to the field, but its success was largely based on his unique circumstances (e.g., physical appearance, language ability, and personal connections). More to the point, it is misleading to suggest that scholars of Japan have failed to see the connection between the family and the economy. Many writers before Hamabata have noticed the connections that women have with and within the family enterprise. For instance, as Suzanne Vogal writes, "the interdependence of the husband's and wives! roles in the division of labor is merely a manifestation of the interdependence that characterizes Japanese society" (Vogal, 1978: 16). Likewise, Ann Imamura writes, "the housewife has the greater responsibility of managing the household, including the finances, by herself" (Imamura, 1987: 83). So the new insight about Japanese women that Hamabata claims to have is not as profound as he thinks it is. However, as with the first man to walk on the moon, the actual success of his study-as opposed to its original inspiration-is to be praised. In chapter three of his book, entitled "Households," Hamabata explains how households are formed and constituted among the upper crust of the Tokyo elite. He explained in detail the importance of succession and inheritance in the Japanese household. I was especially amazed by the cold and calculating nature of the Japanese mother he described. The mother actually went so far as to hire a private detective to research the background of! a prospective son-in-law. Similarly, because her own son ! had "entered a third ranked university," she was considering denying him the head ship of the family by bringing in a mukoo-yoshi. All that sort of behavior would be fascinating for the cultural game theorists, who model these behaviors mathematically. The "bringing in a mukoo-yoshi" is actually quite rare among most of the Japanese she knew. So, one criticism of Hamabata's third chapter is that seems to claim this sort of behavior is wide spread in Japanese society. But maybe the mukoo-yoshi phenomena is more concentrated among the elites of Japanese society. However, Professor Hamabata rarely, if ever, considers the enormous class difference of his "informants." In chapter four, "Death," Hamabata describes the process whereby the Japanese deal with a death in the family. He goes into some detail about how the dead family member is "removed from the realm of the living and ultimately from the world of men." It was particularly interesting to note the lack of stro! ng belief that Hamabata's informants had in the "afterlife." When pressed, none of them would unequivocally declare a belief in ancestral spirits. At least for the upper crust of Japanese society, the dead are treated in a very calculating and utilitarian-like fashion. In Hamabata's interpretation, all the rituals for the dead seemed to be more for the benefit of the living. And the dead often took center stage in familial power struggles. In contrast to many of the observations Hamabata made, I think his discussion of death applies widely across Japanese society. As an English teacher in Osaka, I spoke with hundreds of Japanese and only met one who expressed a sincere belief in the existence of dead ancestors. I believe that Japanese live somewhat of a duel life in this regard. For the most part, they accept the theory of evolution. Yet, at certain times of the year, they suspend their scientific belief in order to strengthen their family bonds. It all seems very r! ational. Apparently for Japanese, "God was made for man," ! whereas American Christians tend to assume that "man was made for God." In chapter five, "Authority," Hamabata largely describes the struggles for power that occurred after grandfather Moriuchi had passed away. Mr. Moriuchi did not specify which of his son's should assume the dominate position in the ie structure. He had left the instructions that his trusted assistant should temporarily hold the position until he (the trusted assistant) could make the judgment as to a successor. But this created quite a power struggle within the extended family. After several brothers had experienced financial failures, it eventually became clear who would succeed. With the resolution of the matter, the family enterprises were better able to move on towards economic success. I thought this chapter was especially insightful in its providing real life examples for Nakane's more theoretical insights. As Nakane writes, "No matter how strong the unity, no matter how happy the group, the s! udden removal of the leader is a severe blow and automatically brings a household rebellion" (Nakane, 1970: 44).

Written before september 11, I probably wouldn't have noticed that book, if I hadn't to do some pouring into concepts of political culture.
And then this book astonished me!

It explains the actual political cultures of Germany und Japan and offers ways of understanding the concept of political culture as such. And it is superb in its explanations - and it's thesis proves to be very good if one looks at actual German-American discussions!

As a German, I warmly encourage this book to all people who are interested to understand Germany and Japan in the present!

There is a great deal of discussion these days about the inadequacy of Western critics treating non-Western materials, but it is deucedly difficult to find indigenous criticism in translation. The essays of Tadao Sato, one of Japan's important film critics, are thus extremely valuable for students and teachers of the subject. Sato's work is provocative, readable, and full of insight. He gives us a sense about how Japanese cinema speaks to the extraordinary crises and transitions that have affected the nation's people and culture during the past century. He treats not only art films but also talks about currents in popular cinema. He is not as exhaustive as Richie, but his overview is, perhaps for this reason, more coherent. He analyzes technical aspects of cinema and discusses the importance of actors and actresses as well as explores thematic aspects of Japanese film. He is, as translator and editor Barrett points out, "anti-feudalistic," so he gives less attention to the period films of Kurosawa than Western critics do. To compensate, however, he provides extremely valuable insight into the more "Japanese" domestic dramas of Ozu and Naruse. An essay on the impact of Western cinema on Japanese cinema gives a concise picture of cross-cultural influences. His essays on "Developments in the 60s" and "Developments in the 70s" demonstrate connections between "art" cinema and popular cinema. He does not consider anime, sci-fi genres, or more recent cinema in this collection. The book includes a useful chronology of developments in Japanese cinema through 1981. Barrett's essay on Sato creates important context for Sato's work.