Download or read book Japan Its History and Culture written by Scott W. Morton and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2004-09-21 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once a star of postwar industrial production and methods, Japan has encountered serious trouble with market forces in recent years. Social changes and departures from tradition are becoming more common in this conservative country. The revised edition of the popular work, Japan: Its History and Culture, Fourth Edition, documents and explains these changes. Seamlessly blending current events, politics, and cultural elements, the authors provide a riveting account of a nation often misunderstood by the West.
Download or read book Shint In the History and Culture of Japan written by Ronald S. Green and published by Association for Asian Studies. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a concise overview of Shintō through a survey of its key concepts, related archeological finds, central mythology, significant cultural sites, political dimensions, and historical developments. Its goal is to promote an understanding of Shintō as an enduring cultural phenomenon central to Japan past and present.
Download or read book Japan written by Nancy K. Stalker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool provides a historical account of Japan’s elite and popular cultures from premodern to modern periods. Drawing on the most up-to-date scholarship across numerous disciplines, Nancy K. Stalker presents the key historical themes, cultural trends, and religious developments throughout Japanese history. Focusing on everyday life and ordinary consumption, this is the first textbook of its kind to explore both imperial and colonial culture and offer expanded content on issues pertaining to gender and sexuality. Organized into fourteen chronological and thematic chapters, this text explores some of the most notable and engaging aspects of Japanese life and is well suited for undergraduate classroom use.
Download or read book Japan its history and culture written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Japan written by Dorothy Perkins and published by New York : Facts on File. This book was released on 1991 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Less comprehensive and more popularly written than the nine-volume Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan ( LJ 1/84), this single-volume work is nevertheless a valuable reference source. It is extremely current, including entries on such recent topics as the Recruit political scandal and current prime minister Kaifu Toshiki. While the articles in the Kodansha Encyclopedia are written by experts in the field and provide bibliographic references with nearly all of the entries, the present work is authored entirely by Perkins, whom the publisher identifies as ``an educator specializing in Buddhism and Japanese culture,'' and has only a general bibliography at the end. For its more comprehensive treatment, especially of historical topics and traditional culture, the Kodansha remains a standard source, but for its currency and value as a ready reference tool the Perkins volume will be a useful acquisition for most libraries as well. Its single-volume format and lower cost make it an excellent acquisition for smaller libraries.-- Scott Wright, Univ. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. - Library Journal.
Download or read book Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons written by Haruo Shirane and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery. Shirane discusses textual, cultivated, material, performative, and gastronomic representations of nature. He reveals how this kind of 'secondary nature, ' which flourished in Japan's urban environment, fostered and idealized a sense of harmony with the natural world just at the moment when it began to recede from view. Illuminating the deeper meaning behind Japanese aesthetics and artifacts, Shirane also clarifies the use of natural and seasonal topics as well as the changes in their cultural associations and functions across history, genre, and community over more than a millennium. In this book, the four seasons are revealed to be as much a cultural construction as a reflection of the physical world."--Back cover.
Download or read book The Book in Japan written by Peter Kornicki and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-06 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study deals with all aspects of the history of the book in Japan, from the production of manuscripts and printed books to book-collecting, libraries, censorship and readership. It also sets books in the context of Japan's cultural ties with China, Korea and Parhae. The focus is on the history of both texts and physical books. This encompasses not only books in Japanese but also books in Chinese by Chinese and Korean authors, and some Western books as well. It is an essential reference tool and bibliographic guide for all those interested in book studies, and particularly of importance for historians of Japanese culture. It is illustrated with examples taken from various collections of early Japanese books in Europe.
Download or read book Everyday Things in Premodern Japan written by Susan B. Hanley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan was the only non-Western nation to industrialize before 1900 and its leap into the modern era has stimulated vigorous debates among historians and social scientists. In an innovative discussion that posits the importance of physical well-being as a key indicator of living standards, Susan B. Hanley considers daily life in the three centuries leading up to the modern era in Japan. She concludes that people lived much better than has been previously understood—at levels equal or superior to their Western contemporaries. She goes on to illustrate how this high level of physical well-being had important consequences for Japan's ability to industrialize rapidly and for the comparatively smooth transition to a modern, industrial society. While others have used income levels to conclude that the Japanese household was relatively poor in those centuries, Hanley examines the material culture—food, sanitation, housing, and transportation. How did ordinary people conserve the limited resources available in this small island country? What foods made up the daily diet and how were they prepared? How were human wastes disposed of? How long did people live? Hanley answers all these questions and more in an accessible style and with frequent comparisons with Western lifestyles. Her methods allow for cross-cultural comparisons between Japan and the West as well as Japan and the rest of Asia. They will be useful to anyone interested in the effects of modernization on daily life.
Download or read book Cool Japan written by Sumiko Kajiyama and published by Museyon Inc.. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by local expert Sumiko Kajiyama, Cool Japan explores the heart of Japanese culture and must-see places from a uniquely Japanese perspective. First, visit Kyoto, where you will discover 1,000 years of history, from the ancient love story the Tale of Genji to the traditional tea ceremony. Then head to Tokyo to experience Japan's cutting-edge capital, where the 21st-century kawaii culture collides with landmarks like the Kabuki-za Theater and the Imperial Palace. For a different perspective, venture outside the city to the serene towns of Tohoku, the region largely affected by the 2011 tsunami disaster. Informative, entertaining, and useful, this book is an ideal introduction for any traveler looking for a deeper understanding of Japanese culture, past and present.
Download or read book Japanese Civilization written by S. N. Eisenstadt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading social theorists provides a monumental synthesis of Japanese history, religion, culture, and social organization. Equipped with a thorough command of the subject, S. N. Eisenstadt focuses on the non-ideological character of Japanese civilization as well as its infinite capacity to recreate community through an ongoing past.
Download or read book Pure Invention written by Matt Alt and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how Japan became a cultural superpower through the fantastic inventions that captured—and transformed—the world’s imagination. “A masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling.”—W. David Marx, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives. In the 1970s and ’80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, gliding on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the “lost decades” of deep recession and social dysfunction. The end of the boom should have plunged Japan into irrelevance, but that’s precisely when its cultural clout soared—when, once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and multimedia empires like Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. Artfully packaged, dangerously cute, and dizzyingly fun, these products gave us new tools for coping with trying times. They also transformed us as we consumed them—connecting as well as isolating us in new ways, opening vistas of imagination and pathways to revolution. Through the stories of an indelible group of artists, geniuses, and oddballs, Pure Invention reveals how Japan’s pop-media complex remade global culture.
Download or read book A History of Japan written by Richard Henry Pitt Mason and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Brief History of Japan written by Jonathan Clements and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion. First revealed to Westerners in the chronicles of Marco Polo, Japan was a legendary faraway land defended by a fearsome Kamikaze storm and ruled by a divine sovereign. It was the terminus of the Silk Road, the furthest end of the known world, a fertile source of inspiration for European artists, and an enduring symbol of the mysterious East. In recent times, it has become a powerhouse of global industry, a nexus of popular culture, and a harbinger of post-industrial decline. With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests. Among the chapters in this Japanese history book are: The Way of the Gods: Prehistoric and Mythical Japan A Game of Thrones: Minamoto vs. Taira Time Warp: 200 Years of Isolation The Stench of Butter: Restoration and Modernization The New Breed: The Japanese Miracle
Download or read book Japan in Print written by Mary Elizabeth Berry and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-02-16 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quiet revolution in knowledge separated the early modern period in Japan from all previous time. After 1600, self-appointed investigators used the model of the land and cartographic surveys of the newly unified state to observe and order subjects such as agronomy, medicine, gastronomy, commerce, travel, and entertainment. They subsequently circulated their findings through a variety of commercially printed texts: maps, gazetteers, family encyclopedias, urban directories, travel guides, official personnel rosters, and instruction manuals for everything from farming to lovemaking. In this original and gracefully written book, Mary Elizabeth Berry considers the social processes that drove the information explosion of the 1600s. Inviting readers to examine the contours and meanings of this transformation, Berry provides a fascinating account of the conversion of the public from an object of state surveillance into a subject of self-knowledge. Japan in Print shows how, as investigators collected and disseminated richly diverse data, they came to presume in their audience a standard of cultural literacy that changed anonymous consumers into an "us" bound by common frames of reference. This shared space of knowledge made society visible to itself and in the process subverted notions of status hierarchy. Berry demonstrates that the new public texts projected a national collectivity characterized by universal access to markets, mobility, sociability, and self-fashioning.
Download or read book Japan s Competing Modernities written by Sharon Minichiello and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1998-09-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, have studied the greater Taisho era (1900-1930) within the framework of Taisho demokurashii (democracy). While this concept has proved useful, students of the period in more recent years have sought alternative ways of understanding the late Meiji-Taisho period. This collection of essays, each based on new research, offers original insights into various aspects of modern Japanese cultural history from "modernist" architecture to women as cultural symbols, popular songs to the rhetoric of empire-building, and more. The volume is organized around three general topics: geographical and cultural space; cosmopolitanism and national identity; and diversity, autonomy, and integration. Within these the authors have identified a number of thematic tensions that link the essays: high and low culture in cultural production and dissemination; national and ethnic identities; empire and ethnicity; the center and the periphery; naichi (homeland) and gaichi (overseas); urban and rural; public and private; migration and barriers. The volume opens up new avenues of exploration for the study of modern Japanese history and culture. If, as one of the authors contends, the imperative is " to understand more fully the historical forces that made Japan what it is today," these studies of Japan's "competing modernities" point the way to answers to some of the country's most challenging historical questions in this century. Contributors: Gail L. Bernstein, Barbara Brooks, Lonny E. Carlile, Kevin M. Doak, Joshua A. Fogel, Sheldon Garon, Elaine Gerbert, Jeffrey E. Hanes, Helen Hardacre, Sharon A. Minichiello, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Jonathan M. Reynolds, Michael Robinson, Roy Starrs, Mariko Asano Tamanoi, Julia Adeney Thomas, E. Patricia Tsurumi, Christine R. Yano.
Download or read book Ancient Japan written by Captivating History and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-11 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan, the country of the rising sun, is today known as one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced nations despite not having many natural resources. This guide will lead you into that dive, showing how those characteristics synonymous with the Japanese civilization gradually appeared, formed, and transformed through time.
Download or read book Japanamerica written by Roland Kelts and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Japanese pop culture such as anime and manga (Japanese animation and comic books) is Asia's equivalent of the Harry Potter phenomenon--an overseas export that has taken America by storm. While Hollywood struggles to fill seats, Japanese anime releases are increasingly outpacing American movies in number and, more importantly, in the devotion they inspire in their fans. But just as Harry Potter is both "universal" and very English, anime is also deeply Japanese, making its popularity in the United States totally unexpected. Japanamerica is the first book that directly addresses the American experience with the Japanese pop phenomenon, covering everything from Hayao Miyazaki's epics, the burgeoning world of hentai, or violent pornographic anime, and Puffy Amiyumi, whose exploits are broadcast daily on the Cartoon Network, to literary novelist Haruki Murakami, and more. With insights from the artists, critics, readers and fans from both nations, this book is as literate as it is hip, highlighting the shared conflicts as American and Japanese pop cultures dramatically collide in the here and now.For more information visit http://www.japanamericabook.com/
