Download or read book You Gotta Have Wa written by Robert Whiting and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Tokyo Junkie, “the definitive book on Japanese baseball and one of the best-written sports books ever” (San Francisco Chronicle). One might expect the sport of baseball in Japan to be a culture clash—a collision of American individualism with the Japanese focus on wa, or harmony. Instead, it has turned into a winning symbiosis. Imported American sluggers—some past their primes—have found new life in the East and have given credibility to the Japanese game. A succession of Japanese stars like Hideo Nomo left their teams to find success in the US major leagues, enabling MLB International to make hundreds of millions of dollars selling TV and licensing rights to its games in Japan. While philosophical differences remain, You Gotta Have Wa guides you through the strange and fascinating world of besuboru, or baseball. With a history of the game in Japan and an overview of the Japanese leagues and their rules, this book follows the careers of players and managers who influenced the game in the East and vice versa—including Babe Ruth, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, and Sadaharu Oh, the Japanese homerun king. Whether you are a Yankees or a Red Sox fan, a sports or an enthusiast of Japanese culture, “simply sit back and enjoy the wonderful stories in You Gotta Have Wa, one of the most unusual baseball books of the season” (The New York Times). “A wonderfully entertaining look at baseball and wa.” —Time “A terrific, fast-paced account of Japanese baseball.” —Chicago Tribune “A funny look at baseball in Japan that is as much a work of cultural anthropology as a sports book.” —Playboy

Download or read book You Gotta Have Wa written by Robert Whiting and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-03-24 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious, informative, and riveting account of Japanese baseball and the cultural clashes that ensued when Americans began playing there professionally. In Japan, baseball is a way of life. It is a philosophy. It is besuboru. Its most important element is wa—group harmony—embodied in the proverb "The nail that sticks up shall be hammered down." In this witty and incisive book, Robert Whiting gives us a close-up look at besuboru's teams, obsessive ritualism, and history, as seen through the eyes of American players who found the Japanese approach—rigorous pregame practices, the tolerance for tie games, injured pitchers encouraged to “pitch through the pain”—completely baffling. With vivid accounts of East meeting West, involving Babe Ruth, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, Japanese home run king Sadaharu Oh, and many others, this lively and completely unique book is an utter gem and baseball classic.

Download or read book YOU GOTTA HAVE WA WHEN TWO CULTURES COLLIDE ON THE BASEBALL DIAMOND written by ROBERT WHITING and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Sportsworld of the Hanshin Tigers written by William W. Kelly and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball has been Japan's most popular sport for over a century. The Sportsworld of the Hanshin Tigers analyzes Japanese baseball ethnographically by focusing on a single professional team, the Hanshin Tigers. For over fifty years, the Tigers have been the one of the country’s most watched and talked-about professional baseball teams, second only to their powerful rivals, the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. Despite a largely losing record, perennial frustration, and infighting among players, the Tigers remain overwhelming sentimental favorites in many parts of the country. This book analyzes the Hanshin Tiger phenomenon, and offers an account of why it has long been so compelling and instructive. Author William Kelly argues that the Tigers represent what he calls a sportsworld —a collective product of the actions of players, coaching staff, management, media, and millions of passionate fans. The team has come to symbolize a powerful counter-narrative to idealized notions of Japanese workplace relations. The Tigers are savored as a melodramatic representation of real corporate life, rife with rivalries and office politics familiar to every Japanese worker. And playing in a historic stadium on the edge of Osaka, they carry the hopes and frustrations of Japan’s second city against the all-powerful capital.

Download or read book We are the Mods written by Christine Jacqueline Feldman and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Drawing on archival research, oral history interviews, and participant observation, this examination of the adoption and adaptation of Mod style across geographic space also maps its various interpretations over time, from the early 1960s to the present. The book traces the Mod youth culture from its genesis in the dimly lit clubs of London's Soho. where it began as a way for young people to reconfigure modernity after the chaos of World War II, to its contemporary, country-specific expressions. By examining Mod culture in the United States, Germany, and Japan alongside the United Kingdom, "We Are the Mods" contrasts the postwar development of Mod in those countries that lost the war with those that won. The book illuminates the culture's fashion, music, iconography, and gender aesthetics, to create a compelling portrait of a transnational subculture." --Book Jacket.

Download or read book History of Popular Culture in Japan written by E. Taylor Atkins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phenomenon of 'Cool Japan' is one of the distinctive features of global popular culture of the millennial age. A History of Popular Culture in Japan provides the first historical and analytical overview of popular culture in Japan from its origins in the 17th century to the present day, using it to explore broader themes of conflict, power and meaning in Japanese history. E. Taylor Atkins shows how Japan was one of the earliest sites for the development of mass-produced, market-oriented cultural products consumed by urban middle and working classes. From traditional monochrome ink painting, court literature and poetry to anime, manga and J-Pop, popular culture was pivotal in the rise of Japanese nationalism, imperialism, militarism and economic development, and to the present day plays a central role in Japanese identity. With updated historiography throughout, this fully revised second edition features: - A new chapter on popular culture in the Edo period - An expanded section on pre-Tokugawa culture - More discussion on recent pop culture phenomena such as TV game shows, cuteness and J-Pop - 10 new images - A new glossary of terms including kanji This improved edition is a vital resource for students of Japanese cultural history wishing to gain a deeper understanding of Japan's contributions to global cultural heritage.

Download or read book The Making of Sporting Cultures written by John Hughson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Making of Sporting Cultures presents an analysis of western sport by examining how the collective passions and feelings of people have contributed to the making of sport as a ‘way of life’. The popularity of sport is so pronounced in some cases that we speak of certain sports as ‘national pastimes’. Baseball in the United States, soccer in Britain and cricket in the Caribbean are among the relevant examples discussed. Rather than regarding the historical development of sport as the outcome of passive spectator reception, this work is interested in how sporting cultures have been made and developed over time through the active engagement of its enthusiasts. This is to study the history of sport not only ‘from below’, but also ‘from within’, as a means to understanding the ‘deep relationship’ between sport and people within class contexts – the middle class as well as the working class. Contestation over the making of sport along axes of race, gender and class are discussed where relevant. A range of cultural writers and theorists are examined in regard to both how their writing can help us understand the making of sport and as to how sport might be located within an overall cultural context – in different places and times. The book will appeal to students and academics within humanities disciplines such as cultural studies, history and sociology and to those in sport studies programmes interested in the historical, cultural and social aspects of sport. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Download or read book The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure written by Sepp Linhart and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure brings together scholars of various disciplines from around the globe to discuss different forms of leisure activities in past and present Japan, thus enriching our knowledge of Japanese culture. Arranged in five sections, the volume focuses on everyday activities such as leisure, sports, travel and nature, theater and music, playing games, and gambling. The editors place the treated leisure activities into a historical frame of reference and relate them to the well-known classification scheme of games by Roger Caillois.

Download or read book Baseball Without Borders written by George Gmelch and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of original essays about baseball in other cultures, notably Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific, which explores a wide range of issues for each region.

Download or read book Multilingual Baseball written by Brendan H. O'Connor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-04-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can baseball teach us about language, culture, and society? The first book-length exploration of multilingualism in professional sports, Multilingual Baseball provides an intimate look at language diversity in the transnational world of baseball. Based on extensive interviews and observations in the US and the Dominican Republic, the book foregrounds the voices of current and former players, coaches, front office personnel, international scouts, language teachers, and interpreters, with baseball experience in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Engaging a wide range of foundational concepts within sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and linguistic and cultural anthropology, the analysis reveals the relevance of bilingualism to the social and economic realities of professional baseball as a transnational business. It also illuminates day-to-day encounters with linguistic and cultural difference on the field, in clubhouses, and in communities around the world. Through this linguistic lens, the book delves into social issues in diverse societies by connecting interactions within baseball to the broader challenges of immigration, race, and demographic change. While grounded in the experiences of Spanish and English speakers in US Major League Baseball organizations, Multilingual Baseball presents the transnational game as a microcosm of globalizing societies around the world, inviting readers to consider what we can learn from the bilingual understandings and misunderstandings that arise in everyday baseball interactions.

Download or read book 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die written by Ron Kaplan and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Propounding his "small ball theory" of sports literature, George Plimpton proposed that "the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature." Of course he had the relatively small baseball in mind, because its literature is formidable--vast and varied, instructive, often wildly entertaining, and occasionally brilliant. From this bewildering array of baseball books, Ron Kaplan has chosen 501 of the best, making it easier for fans to find just the books to suit them (or to know what they're missing). From biography, history, fiction, and instruction to books about ballparks, business, and rules, anyone who loves to read about baseball will find in this book a companionable guide, far more fun than a reference work has any right to be.

Download or read book Baseball in America and America in Baseball written by Robert Bruce Fairbanks and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting views from a variety of sport and history experts, Baseball in America and America in Baseball captures the breadth and unsuspected variety of our national fascination and identification with America's Game. Chapters cover such well-known figures as Ty Cobb and lesser-known topics like the "invisible" baseball played by Japanese Americans during the 1930s and 1940s. A study of baseball in rural California from the Gold Rush to the turn of the twentieth century provides an interesting glimpse at how the game evolved from its earliest beginnings to something most modern observers would find familiar. Chapters on the Negro League's Baltimore Black Sox, financial profits of major league teams from 1900 to 1956, and American aspirations to a baseball-led cultural hegemony during the first half of the twentieth century round out this superb collection of sport history scholarship. Baseball in America and America in Baseball belongs on the bookshelf of any avid student of the game and its history. It also provides interesting glimpses into the sociology of sport in America.

Download or read book What Future for Japan written by Rudolf V. A. Janssens and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 1995 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government began to plan a policy for a defeated Japan. In order to avoid any future attacks on the United States, Japanese society had to be changed. Politicians, Japan specialists, historians, political scientists, and anthropologists debated the future of Japan. Topics ranged from the future role of the Emperor and politics, to Japanese economy, to re-education of the Japanese people. Eventually an overall policy for postwar Japan was formulated, which was to a high degree executed by General Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan. This study is based on research in the records of the government policy planners, both private papers and official records. It is the first book-length study of the American planning for the occupation of Japan, including the drafting of policy, not only in the State Department but also in the War Department, Office of Strategic Services, and the Office of War Information. The analysis focuses on the development of strategies for remodeling postwar Japan as well as on the meaning of Japan constructed by various planners and decision makers and the impact of their constructions on American Occupation policy.

Download or read book Learning in Likely Places written by John Singleton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-09-13 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of nineteen case studies, edited by John Singleton, the contributors describe the transferral of knowledge and practice within particular communities of Japanese artisans, workers, artists, musicians, and professionals. Together, the essays aim to demonstrate the rich variety of pedagogical arrangements and learning patterns, both historical and contemporary, through which the Japanese pass on both cultural and practical knowledge.

Download or read book Seeing Stars written by Dennis J. Frost and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Seeing Stars, Dennis J. Frost traces the emergence and evolution of sports celebrity in Japan from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries. Frost explores how various constituencies have repeatedly molded and deployed representations of individual athletes, revealing that sports stars are socially constructed phenomena, the products of both particular historical moments and broader discourses of celebrity. Drawing from media coverage, biographies, literary works, athletes’ memoirs, bureaucratic memoranda, interviews, and films, Frost argues that the largely unquestioned mass of information about sports stars not only reflects, but also shapes society and body culture. He examines the lives and times of star athletes—including sumo grand champion Hitachiyama, female Olympic medalist Hitomi Kinue, legendary pitcher Sawamura Eiji, and world champion boxer Gushiken Yokoō—demonstrating how representations of such sports stars mediated Japan’s emergence into the putatively universal realm of sports, unsettled orthodox notions of gender, facilitated wartime mobilization of physically fit men and women, and masked lingering inequalities in postwar Japanese society. As the first critical examination of the history of sports celebrity outside a Euro-American context, this book also sheds new light on the transnational forces at play in the production and impact of celebrity images and dispels misconceptions that sports stars in the non-West are mere imitations of their Western counterparts."

Download or read book The Devil s Snake Curve written by Josh Ostergaard and published by Coffee House Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A humorous, historical, and hirsute miscellany that's the baseball book Howard Zinn would have written, if he hated the Yankees.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Baseball written by Leonard Cassuto and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-21 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Babe Ruth to the Black Sox scandal, this Companion examines baseball's history, global identity, current challenges and memorable personalities.