Japan Books

This book was supervised by no other than Koichi Tohei, and it shows. It focus' on not only the body and techniques, but on development of the mind as well. This book has two parts: Unification of Mind and Body, and Shin-Shin Toitsu Aikido Techniques. Waza are well illustrated and explained. A great addition!

We needed pictures of the type of clothing the Ainu wore. This book provided clear pictures and explanations

Hardback bound in blue cloth with dustcover. 533 pages, over 100 photo illustrations and maps, index. "The book tells not only of the wide-spread and varied operations of the Australian squadrons in the S.W.P.A. and Australian individuals in Burma but of the difficult problem of allocating command responsibilities within a force part of which was assigned to General MacArthur and part controlled by the Minister for Air through his Chief of Air Staff. The story of Japanese reactions to Allied air operations has been told with the help of enemy records which put familiar events in a new light."

Hardback bound in blue cloth with dustcover. 533 pages, over 100 photo illustrations and maps, index. "The book tells not only of the wide-spread and varied operations of the Australian squadrons in the S.W.P.A. and Australian individuals in Burma but of the difficult problem of allocating command resonsibilities within a force part of which was assigned to General MacArthur and part controlled by the Minister for Air through his Chief of Air Staff. The story of Japanese reactions to Allied air operations has been told with the help of enemy records which put familiar events in a new light."

Of course, this is no reading book. But any person who has an interest on air war in the pacific MUST have this book. This is a chronological day by day and theater by theater account of missions, units movements and victory claims for all US air operations, be it Army Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps. All this is served by excellent indexes that make it easy to find what you are looking for: places, poeple, units, you name it. In a nutshell - The perfect reference book.

Takemitsu writes in an atonal style, with hints at the traditional Japanese Zen way flute playing style. If you like the solo flute music of Kazuo Fukushima, you'll apprecite this piece as well. This is challenging for the beginner, but rewarding for the more advanced flautist.

This Book is interesting,and how buy this book.

The author, a top American executive, discusses how to improve Western management style by combining it with some of the most successful Japanese techniques. Each chapter provides summary checklists contrasting Western and Japanese approaches and highlights recommendations for action. This East-meets-West approach suggests that cross-fertilization of ideas is way to achieve success. Where medieval alchemists failed, Rehfeld finds a winning formula. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, HRconsultant.com InfoCenter, and Stern's Management Review online.

Liza Dalby's Catalogue of Everything Japanese reflects her extensive knowledge of the country. After living in Japan as a teenager and becoming the only non-Japanese woman to become a geisha, Dalby displays an extensive knowledge of all things Japanese in this amazing book.

Gradually our mental image of Kamakura Buddhism is becoming much richer and more complex, and this excellent book makes a major contribution to that process. "Alms and Vagabonds" is indeed full of a great many intriguing insights on the development of Buddhism during this time, insights from a wide variety of perspectives, all of which Goodwin elucidates quite naturally in a study of what would at first glance seem to be a small, simple, and minor facet of Japanese Buddhist history.

The book's focus on "kanjin" turns out after all to be an incredibly fruitful one. First of all, the concrete details of this phenomenon, in which itinerant monks went about soliciting donations from rich and poor for the building, rebuilding, and maintenance of Buddhist temples and the like is interesting in its own right. How did it develop? What was its rationale? Who were these monks and how did they make their pitch? Who were the donors, and what was in it for them? There's a real story here, one that the author shares with us after a lot of careful, in-depth, original research. Second of all, "kanjin" allows us to see the socioeconomic nuts and bolts of Kamakura Buddhism in a rare fashion; religion is never cheap, after all, and here we have the story of how all those temples, icons, rituals, sutras, and such were funded--and of how they were replaced when destroyed or damaged. This in turn has the effect of placing Buddhism squarely within the context of Japanese history, both in terms of the era's convoluted record of political twists and turns and open warfare as well as in the almost imperceptibly changing textures of everyday life. However, this is hardly a reductive analysis. The very real and utterly sincere religious motivations and conceptualizations informing "kanjin" both for the monks and the donors are explored in great depth, and this in turn ties in with the spread of Buddhism among the general populace and with the revival movements (such as Shingon Ritsu) within the established Buddhist schools--overturning the misperception that Kamakura Buddhism was only about Pure Land, Nichiren, and Zen. As is doubtlessly clear, something like sociology of religion--or else cultural history of religion--is the key methodological approach here, but Goodwin also gets quite specific in describing the biographies, religious orientations, and kanjin campaigns of key Buddhist monks, especially Jokei, Chogen, and Eizon and their efforts on behalf of Kasagidera, Todaiji, and religiously-motivated public infrastructure projects and charity work.

In fact, a key characteristic of this excellent study is its flawless sense of balance. Buddhism is portrayed neither as a cynical money-making machine nor a haze of disembodied doctrines, neither as a faceless historical process nor an episodic saga of great individuals. Rather, the socioeconomic and spiritual realities dovetail in fascinating ways, monks and layfolks with their own stories to tell are in turn part of a bigger, longer story. And an easily ignored aspect of medieval Buddhist life turns out to quietly revolutionize everything we might have thought about the subject.