Customer Reviews

Japan: Its History and Culture

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Morton has made an effort to impart understanding of Japanese heritage and culture. For the most part, he succeeds; the historical survey has about the right amount of depth for this type of book, and cultural issues are discussed.

What would have made it better would have been a section on specifically Japanese concepts that are hard for non-Japanese to grasp accurately. Many are touched on throughout the book, but words such as 'wa' and 'giri' really deserve a page or two each to go into full descriptiveness, and that doesn't happen. It is clear that Morton has the understanding of them to share; I wish he'd done so.

This books seeks to give the reader a broad grasp of the space of Japan's cultural history. Important names and dates are mentioned in connection with their cultural accomplishments. More than simply telling who killed whom in what war and when, this book gives the reader a vague understanding of how Japan's customs, architecture, art, and prose evolved into the form they are today.

This book is best for those who know next to nothing about the history of Japan and would like an outline with which to proceed to learn more.

This book is perfect for anyone who knows nothing about Japanese history (as I did). It is short and easily readable (less than 250 pages for Japanese history to WWII). As an introduction to Japanese history it does just what it should.....inspire you to learn more....

There's no way you can expect a book of this length (about 300 pages) to fully cover the history of a civilization as ancient, rich, and varied as Japan, but this book does a good job of providing a fairly comprehensive introduction into the main trends in Japanese culture from prehistory to the modern day. As might be expected, the events of the 19th and 20th centuries occupy a considerable amount of the book, and a substantial percentage of the end of the book, which covers post-World War II Japan, was written by Olenik, who Morton specifically brought on to cover parts of modern Japanese culture which Morton is not an expert in. (The change in style is noticeable.)

Because this book is covering so much history in such a small number of pages, very few events are written about in detail. There is considerable discussion about the historical evolution of the cultural aspects of Japanese civilization (as opposed to the political or military), and the authors do a good job of emphasizing the particular nature of the shogunate and why the military used to hold so much power in Japan. By the end of the book, the authors also discuss the economic and pop culture aspects of Japan, which is appropriate in light of their status in the modern world.

If you're already reasonably well-versed in Japanese history, then this book isn't for you. The intended audience is probably students in an introduction to Japanese or East Asian history class, or perhaps the reasonably educated layperson who is ignorant about the main trends of Japanese history but is interested in learning more. As other reviewers have mentioned, this book provides a good foundation from which to start learning more about Japan.

This was an interesting and broad overview of Japanese history and culture. It was very informative to the casual reader, but to readers who know a lot about the culture and history it was a fairly basic review. It covered a lot of information in such a short amount of space. I would recommend this book to the extreme anime fans who know nothing about Japanese culture outside of its anime.

This was probably one of the first books I have ever bought on the history of Japan (it was a third edition). It is brief and covers a lot in such a short book.
Unfortunately, while in my research and subsequent living in Japan, some of the information in the book turned out to be inaccurate, which jeopardizes the rest of the information in the book.
Though a good read, its inaccuracies make it a highly unreliable read.

This is a book assigned to an Economics class in order for us to understand the Japanese culture. I have not finished the book yet and that is why I am giving it 4 stars. So far the book concentrates on quick facts that help me know about the culture without getting into too much detail. I believe the book is good to obtain a brief understanding of the background of the Japanese people and certainly a good source of information before visiting the country.

I love readinf about Japan, but this book was so bland, so unengrosing, that I put it down. Twice, I tried to go back to read it, but to no avail. If you like Japan, and everything it has to offer7 you'll want to avoid this book at all costs.

This book was written by W. Scott Morton and J. Kenneth Olenik.
I never want to purchase anything from these authors again. The
material in the book contains very incorrect and slanderous information, as well as a failure to provide relevant information, concerning Nichiren Daishonin and Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. I know this for a fact because I am a member of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, which is True Mahayana Buddhism, with the Head Temple based in Japan. I have been to the Head Temple twice before, and to the temples in the United States, several times since joining in 1984. The Nichiren Shoshu is NOT political, as the authors present in their book. And Nichiren Daishonin was not political, either, as the authors present. Nor do the authors present the material in a responsible and informative manner, which would be the only suitable manner, especially for persons of their standing in the educational field. To understand the times and the culture of the country at the time, and the circumstances that Nichiren Daishonin was contending with, and to obtain CORRECT information on the actual beliefs and practice, the only reliable source would be the Nichiren Shoshu temples themselves.
Considering the interwoven relationships of religion and politics, and their supportive or non-supportive roles in research, science, medical, etc., fields and their overrall effect on influencing societal behaviors, this is an extremely serious error of the authors.
Not only am I so very dissatisfied with the information they presented, I am also very dissatisfied with their presentation of it. Based on this, I cannot trust their other information either, especially in reference to comments concerning the corruption of U.S. contractors, and the Japanese government, and similiar topics. Even if the information presented on those topics were correct, my question then becomes "Who is the corruptive force behind it all?". I refuse to provide support of any kind to the authors.