Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami [Hardcover]

John Breen (Editor), Mark Teeuwen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

This is the only book to date offering a critical overview of Shinto from early times to the modern era, and evaluating Shinto's place in Japanese religious culture. None of the several books on medieval Shinto that have appeared in recent years has attempted to depict the broader picture, to examine critically Shinto's original and its subsequent development through the medieval, pre-modern and modern periods. The essays in this book address such key topics as Shinto and Taoism in early Japan, Shinto and the natural environment, Shinto and state ritual in early Japan, Shinto and Buddhism in medieval Japan, and Shinto and the state in the modern period. All of the essays highlight the dynamic nature of Shinto and shrine history by focusing on the three-way relationship, often fraught, between local shrine cults, Shinto agendas and Buddhism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book presents a fine thesis well analysed, studied and presented." -- Professor Ian Reader, Lancaster University

"[This book] will immediately become the standard source on the subject and give rise to much subsequent scholarship." -- Professor Richard Bowring, University of Cambridge

About the Author

John Breen is senior lecturer in Japanese, SOAS, University of London.

Mark Teeuwen is lecturer in Japanese, University of Oslo, Norway.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824823621
• ISBN-13: 978-0824823627
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,606,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Finest Shinto Scholarship, Pure and Simple, March 22, 2006

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami (Paperback)

This collection of articles constitutes by far the best, most reliable general historical treatment of Shinto that I know of, and in overall quality is on a par with Helen Hardacre's excellent "Shinto and the State, 1868-1988" (which of course deals in depth with a more specific time period). This is good, solid, critical scholarship that plies the middle course between the Scylla of ahistorical, essentialist, culturally nationalist fuzz and the Charybdis of politicized, deconstructive, debunking wrath. Not that the contributors don't have a point to make, but they do so without sermonizing (one way or the other); their primary interest is in shedding some much needed light and clarity on the many fascinating and important aspects of the traditions we call "Shinto" today, spanning the seventh to twentieth centuries in the process. And I have already seen a number of these articles cited in books and academic journals, so this promises to be an influential set of studies. Most of these articles are original to this book, while some are translations from Japanese journals appearing in English here for the first time. If you are interested in Japanese religion generally or Shinto specifically, you won't want to miss out on this hefty volume, and those into Japanese history should also find it useful.

Note: I've appended a list of this book's sixteen articles below in the ProductWiki section.