Japan Books

This is an excellent collection of articles describing people, firms, and nations that succeeded in modern capitlism. Looking a the four most successful economies of the past two centuries: England, US, Germany, and Japan- Prof. McCraw's expertly edited and coherent collection of articles gives the reader a flavor of what made for great success in the capitalist economy. Each country has three articles: a firm, an entrepenure, and the country itself for a total of 12 articles each written by true experts. McCraw's understanding of capitlism is somewhat skewed toward the modern, however on the whole the book is extremely balanced. Of partiuclar note, is Prof. David Moss's article on the Deutch Bank which dicusses the succcess, failures, rewards, and dark side of capitalism.

The book covers the history of capitalism in great detail outlining the major turning points and how it has evolved to shape modern capitalism. A definite must read for whoever is interested in the nature of a capitalist society.

The card designs in this book are simply beautiful! It is packed full of detailed instructions to create artistic Japanese paper engineering card design. If you are creative, you can easily customize the designs by using different papers, calligraphy, drawing, watercolors and more. The possibilities are endless!

This book was an excellent attempt to show
people how to make cards that are also a
personalized gift. It was a fun book to
look through because the photography was
wonderful. The writing inspired me to
start making my own personalized cards for
special occasions and close friends. In
addition, the directions were clear, with
step-by-step diagrams. The drawback is that
some of the cards were very difficult to
make (I have tried making about half of
them), and perhaps not realistic for the
novice. However, I also use this book for
ideas and I don't ever tire of going through
it. I highly recommend this book for people
who love paper crafts!

It got to me on time and in good shape! It is a very well written book, great for anyone who is interested in Asiatic history, or borderland disputes.

"Crossed Histories" is a collection of articles written by competent scholars about cultural and subconscious meaning of the term 'Manchuria' in modern Asia. The multi-angled perspective of presenting japanese propaganda movies, utopian city planning, manchurian spy-turned princess and the fate of polish engineers and settlers - builders of the transsiberian railroad provides and interesting journey into the 1930s asian continent and serves as a starting point for anyone interested in that time period. The book hardly fills out the entire subject - rather is like a glimpse into the forgotten world of interwar Manchukuo and an array of cultural meanings it has for several eurasian nations. Becouse of being an inhabitant of Poland, I have my own specific understanding of that exotic realm, complaisant to images existing in my own national memory (the rule of Tsars over polish people, the career of polish intelligentsia on Siberia and our contribution in colonial exploration of Eurasia - which was completely accidental by the way) so it was great to see what 'Manchuria' means for Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and what feelings and memories it awakens in them. When I was in school, I had a friend who was born in a family repatriated from Mukden in 1949, and he posessed completely different mentality, than people that descended from families which have lived in Europe for centuries. In a way, Manchuria links many distant peoples of Eurasia - now they can just explore their interrelations and differences to try build real pan-asian understanding. To be frank, I seriously miss articles covering White Russians, jewish immigrants in Manchuria and indigenious Manchurians of course, they still existed in times of Manchukuo. I have a reason to think, howewer, that thanks to this book such articles will emerge in some time. Great as an intellectual stimulation for more complex studies of interwar Asia, which was undoubtly an ultimate goal of madam Mariko Tamanoi and her colleagues.

Bryan and other contributors did a great job in capturing the sights, energy and flavor of riding in Japan. I have had the book for several years, and for one living in Japan it has proved in-dispensable. More than just routes and places to stop, it covers such topics as taking your bike on the train, lodging and food secrets, repair shops and cycling organizations. And lastly, you can learn a little Japanese cycling language!

Well written and entertaining narratives covering dozens of bike trips throughout Japan; several hours to several days. Well organized by region with detailed maps of routes with 2-3 pages of information regarding terrain, points of interest, accomodations. Invaluable and extensive introduction covering language, map usage, gear to take, food/meal suggestions, lodging and camping, and cycling psychology. I personally used this unique, one of a kind book to prepare for a 3 week/1,000 mile solo trip of both Shikoku and Kyushu Islands (Japan's 3rd and 4 largest) and thouroughly enjoyed myself and found rural Japan to be a fascinating and enchanting place to travel. The dozens of Japanese people I encountered were extremely helpful and courteous and Japan lived up to its reputation of being one of the safest countries in which to travel. And, surprisingly, rural Japan was no more costly that touring in the U.S.; I enjoyed a budget trip. I highly recommend both the book and cycling in Japan. --Tom Crossland (June 1997)

Perhaps one of the best of Japan's interwar novels, "A Dark Night.." takes the reader directly into the mind of author Naoya Shiga who lived in similar circumstances with the main character Kensaku. It is provocative in the way the author makes Kensaku grapple with himself concerning so moral questions that prop up through the course of his adult life until his presumed death at the end. The writer-bohemian Kensaku, who can arguably be taken for the real Naoya Shiga (Edwin McClellan defines this novel as a watakushi-shosetsu in form but not in substance), is at once a critical yet sympathetic description of the modern intellectual who consciensciously takes up both sides of the dilemmas that confront him but inexorably fails to heed his better judgement. Yet for all his debauchery the reader will most likely be delighted of his almost school-boyish courting of his his future wife and in the end be relieved that it was Naoko and no other who rescued him from his eternal quandary about women (starting from his mother and questionable birth). This novel can in some ways be compared and contrasted to Milan Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being" in its views about women. Much has been made about the inconclusiveness of this 400-plus paged novel but I am of the opinion that to have dragged on would just have produced redundant statements to the eventual ending. This novel also provides a very detailed picture of prewar Japan, especially in its desciptions of the old Tokyo quarter (shitamachi) and outlying areas including Yokohama and Kamakura. As Kensaku does a bit of travelling by train and boat from central Honshu to Shikoku and parts of Kyushu, this book may also make for a sort of travel diary. Of particular interest are the descriptions of Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture and Mt. Daisen in Tottori. Lastly, all of this is brought together in clear and elaborate prose by Mr. McClellan. I have read numerous Japanese works in English and never have I been so impressed as I was with this translation. It fills up all of the gaps, in particular social and cultural references in speech inferred only in the abrupt Japanese original. In all, a convincing work that Shiga Naoya should have written another novel apart from this.

... I was blown away. I really, really enjoyed it, and it makes me really wish that Shiga had used his enormous talent to write more books. The premise of the book is pretty simple. We start off with a young man named Kensaku, who after his mother dies moves in with his paternal grandfather. He resents his father for this because he is the only one of the children who is forced to move in with the old man. Kensaku never learns to like his grandfather, but does like Oei, his grandfather's 20 year old mistress. Warp ahead several years, We find Kensaku still living with Oei, and making a living being a writer. He has not written anything major, but has contributed short works to several magazines. The book goes on from there. The reader experiences the agony Kensaku goes through when he finds out the circumstances of his birth, his lust for Oei. His finally marrying someone he loves only to have it marred by the death of his son. The torment he goes through when his young wife Naoko is raped by her cousin. A wonderful book. Shiga, although he wrrote much less, belongs in the same group as Mishima, Kawabata, and Tanizaki as one of the great japanese writers of the modern era.

"Nakamura's methodology combines the field techniques of anthropology, archival research, and the political analysis of social movements to gather information on deaf movements in Japan in the postwar era, with the goal of understanding what it means to subscribe to "deaf identity" in Japan. She frequently includes cross-cultural perspectives from international deaf movements and language systems to contextualize the Japanese case, as well as poses thoughtful and provocative questions about personal and communal identities by comparing the Japanese deaf community to other minority groups in Japan. Nakamura's monograph is extremely important because it explores disability in a wider context--as deafness cuts across all class, ethnic, and gender lines--and explores disability as a social construct for identity formation." --Carolyn S. Stevens, Journal of Japanese Studies

This was a very good, easy to read book. It was very interesting and I am intersted in learning more about the topic.

This is an excellent book. It fundamentally challenges scholars understanding of one of the most interesting party phenomena in industrialized democracies: the long-term dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in party politics or Japanese democracy. Scheiner is also a gifted writer, so the book is often a pleasure to read.

This is the best book on Japanese politics in years. For years, we Japan experts have known that the opposition parties in Japan had a problem, but the diagnosis was always based more on unique factors of each party or the strength of the ruling LDP. Now Scheiner comes along and provides a systematic and creative answer to why opposition parties never seem to be able to take power in Japan. His answer--a vicious circle based on the LDP's access to pork barrel that winds up depriving the oppositon parties of reasons for local politicians to join them, giving a huge advantage to the LDP to stay in power--is brilliant and probably right. He makes his case with detailed evidence from Japan, using just enough simple statistics to be persuasive, and confining more sophisticated methodologies to an appendix for the expert. Scheiner is one of those rare political scientists who is comparative, methodologically sophisticated but also a real country expert. If you want to understand one major dimension of Japanese politics, read this book.

This is a terrific book for people who lived through the war and for those who are too young to remember it. It's not violent, or horrific, but it gives a real flavor of what it was like to be an ordinary young grad student from Missouri who, by various twists and turns, ended up flying the very first flag over Japan at the end of World War II. Miller is a plain-speaking but deeply thoughtful writer, and he relies on his diary entries and letters to paint the scene and the ordinary people he worked with and give the reader a real sense of having been there too.

Having served 4 years in the states and including 2 years in Italy I found this a very interesting and revealing view of what the war was like in the Pacific theater. Of course, this was the experience of one person, but what a tale it is.
It is necessary reading. I heartly recommend it.

This is the only book that I've read that gives an uncensored account of the war from a Japanese citizen. He brings up a lot of questions about the Japanese government and their extreme stupidity. He also tells of what it's like to live in a war torn country.

What I found quite intriguing was his predictions early in the war that eventually came true. It's too bad he did not live to see the end of the war.

This diary is aptly named. The mood is somber, and the images are distorted, like those in a nightmare. I used to be skeptical about claims that the Japanese people would have fought an American invasion in the streets, and that millions could have been killed in the carnage. After reading this journal, I'm inclined to believe it could have happened. Patriotism and solidarity hijacked by fools and fanatics took Japan down a long tunnel, chronicled by Kiyoshi. Many Japanese were lost in a haze of self-deception. Kiyoshi contemporaneously describes the conflict between the Japanese Army and Navy - Japan was certainly not united, though few would speak this truth out loud. Kiyoshi documents the capacity of bureaucrats bent on impressing their higher-ups to speak silly nonsense; his disgust is palpable. He reveals the extent of famine in the final years, when his own most precious resource is a garden plot. Kiyoshi's description of the April 16, 1945, bombing of Tokyo captures facts and a mood: "The newly built factories of Shimomaruko had become nothing more than burned fields. In some places we heard thumps and the explosions of time-delayed bombs. ... I saw the burning of the Kawasaki industrial area and Shimomaruko and was astonished at the totality of the destructive power of modern war. Now I see its burned remains. This all happened in a period of less than ten hours. The electric trains stop, and electricity no longer flows. The water system and gas are halted. According to Akita's account, people who fled to the riverbank of the Tama were killed by bombs, and corpses without heads and trunks were transported away." Also startling are his simple sentences announcing major events. (Fri, April 13):"There is a report that President Roosevelt has died of a cerebral hemorrhage." (Mon, April 23): "The Red Army is invading Berlin. The Nazis will die in suicidal stand to the bitter end. Is such a style of warfare to be praised?" (Wed, May 2): "There is a report that Hitler is dead. It has been communicated that Mussolini has also been murdered." Kiyoshi (who lived for several years in the U.S. before the end of World War I), never saw the end of the Second World War. The last entry in his diary was May 5, 1945. He died that month of pneumonia, caused by malnutrition. This book is rightly seen as a classic. It is a powerful warning about the consequences of arrogance and self-delusion.

After the fiasco that was the 02 manga, practically anything would seem good in comparison! Lucky for us, Digimon Tamers has genuine quality. As Izzy would say, it's "Prodigious!"

I've only read Vol. 1 (I'll edit this when I finish the series), but I like what I've read so far. Basically, this volume tells the familiar story of how Takato, Rika, and Henry met their partners Guilmon, Renamon, and Terriermon, and the trails and tribulations they had while learning to get along. Though there are no new storylines, the animé has been skillfully adapted, and in some cases improved. You won't see any out-of-place jokes in this manga. Don't get confused, there's plently of humor, but unlike the forced humor used in the TV series it comes naturally, making the jokes actually seem, lo and behold, funny! As the humor comes naturally, so does the characterization: These are the exact same personalities you came to know and love in Digimon 03. You won't see any jive-talking Davis in this manga! :)

The Digimon Tamers manga is a return to form. After the ineptly written Zero Two saga, it's good to see that the people in charge are taking the effort to make decent Digimon manga again.

Does the manga artist just not like Season 02? It's definitely one of my favorites. Season 02, of over 50 episodes was covered in two volumes. That's not a proper treatment, that's barely a summary.

However, they seem to overcome this problem here in Tamers. This volume takes us up to Episode 11 - Much Ado about Musyamon. The jokes are great - the author seems to love Calumon and Terriermon. Has interesting info cut from the dub, Writing is good. And the art is great. If you like Tamers, I think you'll like this. Tamers wasn't my favorite series but I enjoyed this and wait for the next volume. Wonder if they'll do Frontier too.