Customer Reviews

Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami

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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.