Reviewed by Chad Kohalyk One day in 1985, from the hills of Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan, came three women dressed in chador, their faces covered. The two sisters and their mother were victims of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and had come to the hospital ward of Nakamura Tetsu, a volunteer doctor from Fukuoka More…
Category: Non-fiction
Review—Japan’s Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia: Navigating the Turning Points in Postwar Asia
How Japan navigated independence movements and revolutions in Southeast Asia during a fractious postwar period.
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Review by Chad Kohalyk A rising China and receding America has Japan once again focused on the confluence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Yet the recent Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision — to promote a new regional security environment anchored by India, Australia, Japan, and the United States — is in stark contrast More…
Review—The Forgotten Japanese
A well-known ethnographer in Japan reveals voluminous details about countryside living before WWII.
Miyamoto Tsuneichi, is author of many ethnographical books on Japanese society, but this is the only one I know of that has been translated into English (transl. Jeffrey Irish). Miyamoto is a well-known scholar and author in Japan. The Forgotten Japanese is a necessary read for anyone interested in Japanese lifestyles in the countryside from More…
Review—Finding the Heart Sutra by Alex Kerr
Powerful, mystical and concise, the Heart Sutra is believed to contain the condensed essence of all Buddhist wisdom.
Kerr has proven an excellent student of friendship and fellowship and has himself become a vessel of wisdom which he now passes on to us readers.
Book Excerpt—Walking in Circles: Finding Happiness in Lost Japan
Todd Wassel walks the 750-Mile, 88-Temple Pilgrimage in Shikoku, Japan and finds some surprising things along the way.
Review—The Territory of Japan: Its History and Legal Basis
Serita Kentaro retraces and analyzes the history of negotiations over the Northern Territories, Takeshima and Senkaku Islands.
Japan’s three territorial disputes with neighbouring countries — the Northern Territories (Russia), Takeshima (Korea), and the Senkaku Islands (China) — all arose in the post-war period. The battle over them is being waged not by guns and butter, but through peaceful means in the courts of law. Less dangerous though this might be, it is no less complicated.
Blast to the Past: “Japan Inside Out,” by Jay, Sumi & Garet Gluck
Gluck’s guidebook, at over 1,000 pages, serves as an enduring source of reference material on Japan.
Review—Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan
In eighteen chapters, this anthology takes an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido.
Review by Renae Lucas-Hall “It’s easy to fall under the spell of rural Japan” is the first sentence in the introduction to this anthology that sets the reader upon a path to enchantment. Each essay acts as a beguiling incantation that will amplify one’s desire to explore the Japanese countryside. If you’re an avid reader More…
Review—The Era of Great Disasters
Recent Release! A fascinating look at three of Japan’s most devastating earthquakes.
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The Era of Great Disasters: Japan and Its Three Major Earth Quakes, by Iokibe Makoto (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, July 2020) Review by Amy Chavez Included in the University of Michigan Press ‘Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies,’ The Era of Great Disasters is a scholarly but highly readable text that investigates Japan’s More…
15 years at Studio Ghibli by Steve Alpert
(Photo of author, left, with Hayo Miyazaki and others) An excerpt from the upcoming release Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man: 15 years at Studio Ghibli By Steve Alpert (Stone Bridge Press, June 2020) Temporarily Misplaced in Translation When I first began learning Japanese I was struck by how beautifully it can express certain More…