Featured Selections

With Respect to the Japanese: A Guide for Americans
By John C. Condon, Foreword by Kohei Goshi

This book describes the Japanese behaviors that may be encountered when Americans interact with the Japanese, the reason(s) for the behaviors, and suggestions for dealing with them. Readers discover what will embarrass, motivate, irritate, and earn the respect of the Japanese with whom they are trying to communicate.

The Great Wave:
Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccrentrics and the
Opening of Old Japan
By Christopher Benfrey

When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan,” with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance and perspective. 

The Making of Modern Japan
By Marius B. Jansen

Magisterial in vision, sweeping in scope, this monumental work presents a seamless account of Japanese society during the modern era, from 1600 to the present. A distillation of more than fifty years' engagement with Japan and its history, it is the crowning work of our leading interpreter of the modern Japanese experience.

Enduring Identities:
The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan
By John K. Nelson

In contrast to conventional notions of ideology and institutions, Dr. Nelson shows how a religious tradition's lack of centralized dogma, charismatic leaders, and sacred texts promotes rather than hinders a broad-based public participation with a variety of institutional agendas, most of which have very little to do with belief.

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