Best of
Japan

1986

The Reckoning


David Halberstam - 1986
    Here are young Ford, renegade Iacocca, visionary Katayama--everyone needed to reveal the crucial nuances behind two nations competing for commercial supremacy. HC: Morrow.

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo


Hiroshige Utagawa - 1986
    

Robotech Art 1: From the Animated Series Robotech


Kay Reynolds - 1986
    

Hibakusha


Gaynor Sekimori - 1986
    Grim though their stories are, understanding what they went through may well be crucial to averting another nuclear tragedy.

Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman


Kojiro Ikegami - 1986
    Both American and Japanese suppliers of traditional tools and materials are provided and substitutes are recommended for items not readily available.For centuries the West has admired Japanese books, but only now can we make them ourselves and take full advantage of their creative possibilities. Stunning and practical, these bindings are ideal for preserving calligraphy, letters, artwork, and poems, for adding a distinctive touch to limited-edition books, and for use as diaries or gifts.

Old Kyoto: A Guide to Traditional Shops, Restaurants and Inns


Diane Durston - 1986
    Down the cobbled paths and behind the tranquil noren curtains of Kyoto, the old way of life goes on, nurtured in the restrained furnishings of the traditional inns and in the old shops where fine handmade items still add a touch of quality to life. Since the first edition appeared in 1986, this lovingly written travelogue-cum-guidebook has become de rigueur for knowledgeable travelers seeking to find "the real Kyoto" behind the modern face of the city's constantly changing boulevards. Old Kyoto focuses on the family establishments that have been in business for at least a hundred years, and in some cases for over ten generations. Astonishingly, many of the old shops and inns of Kyoto can still be found on narrow backstreets, under the heavy, tiled rooftops of traditional machiya dwellings. Here, the adventurous traveler will uncover treasures: the way in which a hand-crafted calligraphy brush is bound, a miniature garden tended, a bamboo basket woven. For critics and travelers alike, Old Kyoto has long been regarded the essential guidebook to Japan's most cherished city. This second edition of Old Kyoto is completely updated. Shops have been added, and maps, prices, directions, descriptions, and general information have all been thoroughly revised.

Pop-Up Greeting Cards


Masahiro Chatani - 1986
    With the simple instructions and ready-made cut-out patterns attached, anyone can have fun making their own original and delightful pop-up greeting cards.

The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench: Stories and Essays


Richard McKenna - 1986
    Selections from the author's uncompleted second novel and stories about a lonely warrant officer, a crafty sailor, and a proud engineer are accompanied by essays about historical research and naval life and reform.

Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant


Shizuo Tsuji - 1986
    Here is the book that takes all that is good about Japanese food and brings it into the home.All recipes are authentic, practical, and lavishly illustrated in color. Techniques, too, are represented in color and lucidly explained. Most important, however, is the selection of ingredients: only those available in supermarkets and oriental food shops in the West are used.From the dainty and delicate dishes that have garnered Japanese cuisine a worldwide reputation to the hearty barbecue and one-pot cornucopias of fresh meat, seafood, and vegetables-all are here at their edible best, charming and accessible, in a cookbook that is a feast for the eyes as well as the family.

Ophelia's Voyage To Japan


Michele Durkson Clise - 1986
    85 full-color and 25 black-and-white illustrations.

Eikoh Hosoe: Photographs (Untitled 42)


Eikō Hosoe - 1986
    The first monograph on Hosoe published in the United States. Only published in wraps.

Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji


Marius B. Jansen - 1986
    That scrutiny is important and overdue, for the period from the 1850s to the 1880s has usually been treated in terms of politics and foreign relations. Yet those decades were also of pivotal importance in Japan's institutional modernization. As the Japanese entered the world order, they experienced a massive introduction of Western-style organizations. Sweeping reforms, without the class violence or the Utopian appeal of revolution, created the foundation for a modern society. The Meiji Restoration introduced a political transformation, but these chapters address the more gradual social transition.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Traditional Japanese Furniture


Kazuko Koizumi - 1986
    Masterful craftsmanship and aesthetic sensitivity evolved with this furniture's long history. Yet, as with much that is Japanese, these pieces find virtue in restraint. The work is compelling yet sedate, with an understated simplicity distilled from a thousand years of knowledge and careful craftsmanship.Though the West has long acknowledged the beauty and value of these objects, the history of their making--their milieu and craftsmanship-remain virtually unexplored. This volume, first published in 1986, fills that void. Author Kazuko Koizumi, a pioneer in the field, brings a thoroughness and warmth to the subject. A wealth of illustrated material puts the pieces in context. A historical account, laced with centuries-old drawings, traces the evolution of furniture design through the lens of Japan's "floor-based" culture.With 114 color plates and over 650 figures, Traditional Japanese Furniture documents and discusses the roots of more than eighty unique furniture types, including the many variations of the beloved tansu chest that has made its way into homes and museums around the world. Like many of the objects it portrays, Traditional Japanese Furniture has found its place among collectors and enthusiasts, standing today as the definitive volume on the subject.

Spectacular Helmets of Japan 16-19 Century


Kodansha - 1986
    Spectacular Helmets of Japan, 16th-19th CenturyOrganized by Japan House Gallery and the Association for the Research and Preservation of Japanese Helmets and Armor.

The Great Eastern Temple: Treasures of Japanese Buddhist Art from Todai-Ji


Yutaka Mino - 1986
    

The Japanese Garden: Islands of Serenity


Haruzo Ohashi - 1986
    This handsome book, by one of Japan's great photographers, offers a tour of nearly 100 classic gardens and landscapes, revealing the special sensibility of Japan's garden art.

Sugawara No Michizane and the Early Heian Court


Robert Borgen - 1986
    A great book for anyone interested in the Heian period of Japan.

Origami Book 6 - Ladybug, Crown


Atsuko Nakata - 1986
    Each book includes 15 sheets of paper and instructions for the origami figures pictured on the cover.

Nihongo: In Defence of Japanese


Roy Andrew Miller - 1986
    Roy Andrew Miller guides the reader through these often contradictory allegations by evaluating Japanese in the light of linguistic science. He also pays particular attention to the problems inherent in certain systems for describing the language, and to questions posed by published translations from Japanese literature.

Where Are the Victors?


Donald Richie - 1986
    

Tales of the Samurai


James S. De Benneville - 1986
    Gripping and evocative, it recounts the rebellions, plots, and battles that culminate in a vendetta's thrilling resolution. James S. de Benneville's Western-style narrative offers an exceptionally faithful retelling. 44 black-and-white illustrations.

Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo


Thomas Blenman Hare - 1986
    The book begins with a biography based on the known documents relating to Zeami's life. It then examines the documentary evidence for authorship and explains the various technical aspects of Noh. Subsequent chapters explore the role of the old man in noh (particularly in the play Takasago), as well as Zeami's plays about women and warriors, with primary attention to Izutsu and Tadanori. The book concludes with a general discussion of Zeami's style and the relationship between his dramatic theory and his plays.

Japanese History and Culture from Ancient to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies


John W. Dower - 1986
    It should be useful as a research list, and seeks to include many unusual, elusive and valuable sources.

Origami Book 4 - Rabbit, Dog, Whale


Atsuko Nakata - 1986
    Each book includes 15 sheets of paper and instructions for the origami figures pictured on the cover.

Peasant Protest In Japan, 1590 1884


Herbert P. Bix - 1986
    

The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse


Geoffrey Bownas - 1986
    Covering the earliest primitive period through the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muramachi, and Edo periods, right up to the modern day, The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse contains more than 700 poems, including short forms such as tanka and haiku, as well as folk-poetry, and more complex verse with which Western readers may be less familiar. Whether read for pleasure or scholarship, this accessible translation displays the full wit, sorrow, and subtlety of Japanese poetry and will remain the authoritative volume for years to come.

Death Was His Koan: The Samurai Zen of Suzuki Shosan


Winston L. King - 1986
    Biography and views of Shosan (1579-1655), a samurai turned Zen Buddhist monk, by a noted scholar.

Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825


Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi - 1986
    New Theses is found to be indispensable to our understanding of Japan's transformation from a feudal to a modern state. Focusing on Aizawa, Wakabayashi traces the development of xenophobia during the Tokugawa period and examines the basis of anti-Western sentiment. He shows how knowledge of Christianity inspired Aizawa to develop the potent concept of kokutai ("what is essential to a nation"). His analysis explains why the Edobakufu's policies of national isolation (sakoku) and armed expulsion of Westerners (joi) gained widespread support in the late Tokugawa. Wakabayashi also describes how information on Western affairs and world conditions decisively altered Tokugawa Confucian conceptions of civilization and barbarism, and how this in turn enabled the Japanese to redefine their nation's relationship to China and the West. Rather than place Aizawa and his New Theses of 1825 at the beginning of a process leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Wakabayashi discusses New Theses in conjunction with the bakufu's Expulsion Edict issued in the same year. He concludes that the convergence of the two events in 1825 marks the emergence of modern nationalism in Japan, and therefore should perhaps be seen as more epoch-making than the 1868 Restoration itself. The study also presents a complete translation of New Theses.

Unwrapping Japan: Society and Culture in Anthropological Perspective


Eyal Ben-Ari - 1986
    

Russia Against Japan, 1904-1905: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War


John N. Westwood - 1986
    In the decade which elapsed after its end much was written about it. The First World War marked a second stage in the development of twentieth-century-style total war, and so overshadowed the Russo-Japanese War that little further study was made of the latter. Subsequent books on this subject were for popular readerships, and mainly recycled the knowledge and beliefs of the pre-1914 years.This book aims to present a short account of the war, stripped of the legends that successive journalists and authors have attached to it, and at the same time present new angles and interpretations based on hitherto unused Russian-language sources and on the specialized monographs of the few scholars working in this and related fields. While not claiming to be definitive, it does provide a fresh start for the study of this war, whose importance justifies a clear-headed examination, casting light on Russian military and naval tradition.The distinctive psychology of Russian generals and admirals is well illustrated in this book, and the conclusion that the former were for bureaucratic reasons happier in defense than offense, and that the latter thought in military rather than naval terms (regarding battleships as fortresses that, under pressure, they could surrender of demolish), has implications for the understanding of subsequent Russian and Soviet history.Among the incidental implications is that during this war the British and American press sank to such a voluntary and involuntary level of distortion that its performance in subsequent wars can only be regarded as an improvement.Here and there in the book explanations for subsequent Russian and Japanese behavior can be glimpsed; not the least of these is the circumstance that at the end of the war Russian generals and officials felt cheated of certain victory while exactly the same intense and long-term frustration gnawed at Japanese public opinion. It was really an unsatisfactory war for both sides, the innumerable dead winning nothing worth while; in this and many other ways the Russo-Japanese War was a dress rehearsal for the First World War.

The Anatomy of Self


Takeo Doi - 1986
    The author is as quick to explode the myths the Japanese have about themselves as he is to defend what he sees as the genius of theirsociety. He spreads his net wide, drawing his conclusions from an extensive knowledge of his own culture but that of the West: Freud, Weber, Max Picard, and George Orwell are every bit as influential here as sources from his own tradition.The Anatomy of Self is a sequel to Doi's pioneering and acclaimed bestseller, The Anatomy of Dependence in which he set out his theory of passive, dependent love as the key to understanding the Japanese. More than 100,000 foreign readers have been intrigued by this work. With The Anatomy of Self,Japanese society again serves as the subject of an analysis by one of its most original thinkers.Like Doi's renowned Anatomy of Dependence, The Anatomy of Self addresses the question of the Japanese individual and his or her integration into Japanese society. Its approach is based on an analysis of the Japanese perception of public and private. What kind of society is made up of individualscapable of a constant traversing between behavior based on two simultaneously held, mutually contradictory modes of perception? Doi discusses this feature of the Japanese psyche, often referring to Western psychology. He compares the individual trauma that classic Western psychology believes toresult from such a split, to the Japanese sense that adulthood is only achieved by acknowledging and accommodating the difference. Finally, the wide-ranging references to history and psychology serve to provoke thought on Freudian notions of the unconscious.

The Coffin Boats: Japanese Midget Submarine Operations in the Second World War


Peggy Warner - 1986
    Judiciously combines the Oriental and the Occidental point of view. They have consulted all the archives on both sides of the Pacific and interviewed all those still alive who played any part in the three raids to write a vivid and accurate account of this curious and short-lived experiment in underwater warfare.