Customer Reviews

Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573-1912 (Studies of the East Asian Institute)

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This is one of the most important and interesting studies of Japanese religion I have read in years. Sarah Thal's focus on one religious site allows her to get past the often unhelpful categories of "Buddhism" "Shinto" and "Shugendo"--instead getting at the historical changes, shifts, reinterpretations, and renegotiations centered on this ever changing religious site very convincingly. Her discussion of the changes transpiring during the Meiji Restoration and after are extremely careful and insightful, shedding the most invaluable light on this key turning point since James Ketelaar's classic "Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan." The book also carefully balances the socioeconomic, political realities within which the religious site operates with the deep, sincere meanings people bring to it--even showing how these two facets interact. On top of all of this, the writing style of this work is extremely clear and evocative. This is a first-rate work of rigorous scholarship that is a joy to read.