Japanese Culture [Hardcover]

Varley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0824822927 | ISBN-13: 978-0824822927 | Publication Date: March 2000 | Edition: 1

For nearly three decades Japanese Culture has garnered high praise as an accurate and well-written introduction to Japanese history and culture. This widely used undergraduate text is now available in a new edition. Thoroughly updated, the fourth edition includes expanded sections on numerous topics, among which are samurai values, Zen Buddhism, the tea ceremony, Confucianism in the Tokugawa period, the story of the forty-seven ronin, Mito scholarship in the early nineteenth century, and mass culture and comics in contemporary times.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"This is a masterpiece of much in little space. It neatly surveys over 2,000 years of the arts, religion, and cultural peculiarities (e.g., the tea ceremony) of one of the most cultivated of nations. It leaves virtually no major individual, religious sect, genre and style of visual art, form of literary expression, variety of theater or influence of extra-Japanese origin unconsidered. It nonetheless admirably retains its focus, ignoring the temptation to relate history that doesn't impinge on cultural developments. What's more, Varley writes superbly lucid prose and avoids long-winded annotation...A superior one-volume introduction to Japanese culture." --Booklist

About the Author

Paul Varley is emeritus professor at Columbia University and Sen Soshitsu XV Professor of Japanese Cultural History at the University of Hawaii.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon; 1 edition (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824822927
• ISBN-13: 978-0824822927
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,677,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)