A Nice, Long-winded Bibliography

  Up next was supposed to be a post on Kanazawa, but that plan has been somewhat delayed as I try to get through the book Kanazawa: a 16th Century Castle Town. My first attempt was thwarted because its an incredibly popular title, as you can imagine, in great demand far and wide and the first copy I tried to purchase was already sold. Anyhow, a different copy was acquired, winged to me post haste and is currently being lustily devoured. The delay, however, got me thinking, possibly because this is now the second time I've been held up on a post as I've either waited for a book to arrive or waited as I read a book. The other time was when I was reading The Fox and the Jewel about contemporary Inari worship, and both times left me wondering about the sources I've been using on this site and whether it would be of value to do a bit of talking about them. I have, of course, put nary a citation or source on any of my posts for two very good reasons: first, I am inherently lazy about such things and even back in school I thought it was a pain that got in the way of the fun of writing and the enjoyment of reading. This site and its narrative are not part of a school research paper, so the need to clutter it up seemed pointless at best. Second, as this post itself and the reason for its origin should make clear, the reading I'm doing is ongoing and I'm constantly going back through old posts changing and updating as I feel necessary; to add constant updating of citations to that would get in the way of what is really just a glorified personal travelogue (see reason one). However, it seems it would be to my own benefit, as well as to the 3 people who've read anything on here to give a rundown on sources if for no other reason than because some of them really are quite good and could be of use if you want to learn more about a specific topic or are intending to travel to Japan. For the sake of not making this the longest post on here, I'm not at this point going to try to list everything. There's too damned much to list and not all of them are as useful as others, so to reiterate my previous statement about me being inherently lazy, I'm going to call this "Installment 1" and list books until I get bored, mainly focusing on ones I've used in posts to this point, and then add some more later down the line...maybe.
  I think it would be good to quickly yap about online resources before diving into the hard media. There is so much available online that (stating the obvious) a bit of caution is warranted when dealing with even things that give the impression of being common knowledge. Of course this is the Internet we're talking about so if you don't already have a bit of critical eye than you're likely close friends with a Nigerian dictator and are just here to kill time as his millions wing their way to your bank account. That aside, one of the best uses for the Internet is as a resource for travel; besides being able to find websites for lodging and attractions, its the best place to find contact information about JRail passes, train schedules and of course find and buy any book, map or guidebook humankind has ever produced. Lodging is particularly easy because compared to trying to call and wrestle with language, we never had a single communication or reservation problem stemming from an email exchange. Talking with those we had made the reservations with, they tended to prefer email because it removed potential communication errors and allowed everyone to know they were literally on the same page well before you actually arrived at the place.
  As far as general information, both for a potential trip and for research purposes, you of course will first smack headlong into Wikipedia, and you can take that as you may. Some information I've looked up there for other subjects has ranged from dubious to actually rather insightful and well written. Most of the Japan stuff has been fairly spot on and topical. Even at this point I still use Wikipedia a good bit, though mainly as a sort of shorthand for reference purposes and for the external links and references which are good if you need a quick example of something. Wikipedia is also a decent travel resource, considering those external links usually include the official English and Japanese language websites and homepages for tourist offices and other in country travel sites.  JTBUSA is one of the best places to get JRail passes. I found them quick, efficient and pleasant to deal with; plus, having an office in the same state made it easy to call when I had a question which was also quickly answered. Both before we went and definitely while we were there we made copious use of Hyperdia for train schedules. It was always accurate and even made life easy when trying to make ticket reservations because it was usually easier to just pull up the trains we wanted on the iPad and show it to the ticket agent than fumble around with each other's languages. Other sites with general information and background are a bit more specific, but can be a lot of fun to poke around on. Two of my favorites are The Online Buddhist-Shinto Art site, which is chocablock full of photos and info and a place quite easy to get lost in for a couple hours, and another that is likely only of interest to me but is so full of stuff on the topic of Japanese trains and history it is a good example of the type of site you should try to search out when rooting around for info online. Basically, there is so much weird specialized knowledge online it can be difficult to sift through it all to get to what you want about specific Japanese topics, and given the inherent language difficulty with Japanese websites this is even trickier, but the amount of decent English language sites makes first forays a bit easier.
  I'll start the printed sources with the travel resources we used. You certainly have your pick when it comes to maps and guidebooks, and to a large degree they are like a relationship with a living thing, in that you kinda need to find the ones you get along with. We had several general guidebooks but by the end of the trip had mostly begun using two almost exclusively. The first was the Lonely Plant Japan. I personally have always been a bit suspicious of the LP guides, feeling that they are sometimes a bit lazy, and if they didn't really spend a good bit of time someplace they don't really say so; but its likely that impression comes from dealing with them several years ago and is seemingly not the case any more. This one was pretty spot on and earned my love for listing a funky little okonomiyaki joint in Kanazawa that we never woulda known about otherwise, and which was incredibly friendly and delicious.
   Sample text: "Free gaming urinals have been installed on the 2nd, 3rd,and 4th floors. At the moment, the displays are only in Kanji - if you can read Japanese, then urine luck."

The other guide we used extensively was Ramsey Zarifeh's Japan by Rail, which as far as I can tell is the result of him riding pretty much every train in Japan. I found it to be so incredibly full of useful information, especially regarding our train hops with route maps and station information it was like a security blanket whenever we left for a new place. Also its full of little tidbits that struck the author as unique or interesting and is full of snippets of gossip that come from this essentially being a guide written by one dude who has roamed all over the country, making it a bit more interesting than just a guidebook for people (like myself) who enjoy traveling by train as its own activity. The edition we had was the latest at the time, but still a couple years old, so some of the pricing was a bit out of date but was otherwise a really good guide. The good news, though not for us at the time of our trip, is that a brand new edition has just come out. I haven't picked it up yet (don't really need it at the moment) but its a must get if you're not gonna be staying in one place and using the trains a bit.
  Sample text: "As health minister in 1998, Koizumi was asked which was more pressing: approving Viagra or reducing toxic dioxin emissions. He replied: 'Personally, Viagra'."

Another guidebook we extensively used was Judith Clancy's Exploring Kyoto, which is really the only guidebook you need for the old capital and its immediate environs. The author breaks down the city into strolling tour sized sections, then in great depth walks you through anything even potentially of interest on the walk, giving you a decent rundown without getting too wordy. It was because of this book that I knew about the Lake Biwa Canal museum, as well as numerous other tidbits and places to see. Not much else to say about this one, if you are going to spend any time whatsoever in Kyoto you are doing yourself a disservice not picking this one up. I would recommend combining it with the Periplus Kyoto map (which includes regional and Nara maps) and you should be pretty well covered.
  Sample text: "Many Japanese are curious to enter because of the gate's association with the notorious robber, Ishikawa Goemon, who hid there. After his capture, he was boiled to death in an iron cauldron; hence the popular name for an old fashioned Japanese bathtub: goemonburo."

  Kyoto, a Cultural History, by John Dougill is a great book that, for lack of a better phrase, adds texture to the narrative of the old town. As its framework it is a general purpose history, but in practice it meanders here and there focusing on specific topics from literature, traditions, arts and the like. It usually ties in the culture of a given time to the history of the time showing how they were very intertwined. This is a fun book, its well written by someone who really seems to like Kyoto and who has taken a lot of time to get the feel for its cultural past and then relate it in an interesting manner. I read this after I got back and wish I had gotten to it before I left, paired with Exploring Kyoto would have made for a good guide.
  Sample text: "...on one such occasion the group I was with were told about the impending visit of foreign priests. 'We Japanese have a long history of Zen. Eight hundred years. Perhaps we have grown lazy.' the abbot smiled. 'Foreign priests are very strict. They follow the rules very hard. We are nervous to do our best,' he giggled, 'I hope we do not disappoint them.' Then, as if to reassure us after confessing such mundane worries, he taught us a Zen wisdom: 'Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters. After a first insight, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters. But after enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and waters are again waters.' He giggled once more, and left us to ponder the deeper meaning."

General books about Japan are a bit trickier to come by. Its not like they don't exist, its just that your not likely to find much depth at your local Barnes and Noble or other friendly local neighborhood mega chain. In fact, mostly what you'll find at your average bookstore is that to American minds the most topical thing that happened to Japan in the past 2000 years is that they were defeated in World War 2 by America. Aside from that, you will likely come across Hirohito and the Making of modern Japan, by Herbert Bix, which is a good enough book but pretty much sums up the current notion that the only narrative that most Americans know about Japan is WW2 and how its aftermath shapes the Japanese nation to this day; which is simplifying things...a lot.
  Used bookstores are a better bet, slightly, but considering their nature is to contain books that someone no longer wants, the selection of topics (given the limited interest most Americans seem to have in Japan) can still be quite narrow and often rather dated. Walking past the 20 racks of books about China and why we do/don't need to be worried about them, you'll get to the 5 or 6 shelves on Japan. Most of what you'll find are books on Japanese atrocities in China and Korea before or during the War, a rainbow of strange books about Japanese business in the eighties which are a rather amusing mix of racism, bull-laden pseudo-scholarly fake business/MBA jargon, and a variety of mostly wrong impressions about the "Japanese Mind". Mixed in will be a few decent books, as far as I can tell because back when people were actually concerned about Japanese companies taking over America some of the standard works were used as texts in classrooms and some decent books actually managed to sneak out of publisher's doors.
  Your best bet is usually to hit old Amazon. I tend to hunt for some rather specific books and have never ceased to be amazed at what you can find on Amazon Marketplace. Whats that? you say you want some rare monographs likely stolen from a European monastery? No problem, 4 used starting at $23.95. Still, a bit of caution is required, and it is worth paying attention to the descriptions or you may end up with a middle school library book complete with check-out card in its little pouch inside the back cover. This was the case with The Meiji Restoration, by Monique Avakian. I list it here anyway for three reasons, one: because I think its funny; two: because its actually not that bad a book, especially if you have a middle school aged kid that you want to teach about the Meiji Restoration, I guess; and three: because it was mildly nostalgic to see a book with the old timey check out card from my youth where you write your name on the card and the Librarian stamps a due date....and Hell Yeah I wrote my name on that sucker! Although the fact that I'm apparently the only one that ever "checked-out" the book is perhaps a bit telling why it was on Amazon Marketplace.
  Sample text: "It was expensive to dress completely in the new style every day, so it wasn't unusual to find Western style shoes underneath the traditional kimono robe. By 1900, married women of the lower classes had stopped their tradition of blackening their teeth and shaving their eyebrows."

  A fun, light introduction to Japanese culture is A Geek In Japan, by Hector Garcia. Holly picked this up from Amazon before the trip and it proved invaluable as part guidebook, part cultural primer. Despite appearances, its chock full of information and helpful hints and is a plain old good time to read. I would highly recommend this one for anybody with a casual interest in the country because it covers a lot of bases without being too frivolous, but doesn't beat you over the head with too much info if you aren't interested in hard-core research.
  Sample text: "Another characteristic of tanuki statues is their over sized testicles. If you take a close look at the photograph, at the base of the statue you don't see its feet but its kin-tama (literally "gold balls"). These large attributes are a symbol of good luck, and in many stories about tanuki they use the skin of the scrotum to play the drum or even as a parachute." P.S. this is 100% true.

 There are several general overviews of Japanese history, and for the most part they all contain the same information, so you can mostly pick one based on which cover you like best. A fairly common one is W.G. Beasley's The Japanese Experience, and I happen to like it's cover. It is widely available and pretty darned thorough, and if you are looking for a single book about Japan that is reasonably accessible then I would say this one fits the bill reasonably well. Its narrative style isn't gonna set the world on fire, being somewhat dry, but it avoids the pitfall of overloading with scholarly sounding jargon that tends to make a lot of history books nearly unreadable. I know it doesn't sound like a glowing recommendation, but it actually is rather decent, you could do far worse.
  Sample text: "Indeed, when the treasury faced unanticipated needs, such as might arise from a Bakufu demand for the contributions to the cost of public works, these 'official' merchants would furnish loans, the interest of which, invariably high, became a further burden."

  Another book that covers the overall history that you are likely to find (likely at an actual bookstore) is Japan: Its History and Culture, by W. Scott Morton and J. Kenneth Olenik. This is another that is a pretty thorough overview of the country, but didn't sit as well with me when I read it or with Holly when she tried to read it in the lead up to the trip. Although it is quite a good book, the style is a bit off putting, and I often found myself getting distracted while reading it thinking about the syntax the authors used than the actual history they were relating.
  Sample text: "The feudal pattern had therefore altered to a direct overlord-vassal relationship, operating locally with no strong central authority. The income from estates was not remitted to absentee owners, with the result that the emperors and court nobles were seriously impoverished."

  Of interest is Ernest Wilson Clement's A Short History Of Japan, which we picked up somewhere and was a pretty easy read. Despite a few occasional clues something isn't quite right it flows along happily until the end when you suddenly realize the book was published in 1915 and ends with a rundown of "current events" in Japan. The "wait, what?" moment you get as you flip back to the title page and realize when it was written was pretty fun and then requires you to go back through it as it puts the point of view of the book into better perspective. Fun stuff, and interesting as a window on the accomplishments of the Meiji Era.
  Sample text: "If another Urashima Taro(the Japanese Rip Van Winkle) had gone to sleep in 1867 and waked up in 1912, he would have been as much bewildered as either his Japanese or American Prototype. And as we contemplate the marvelous transformations of the Meiji Era, we can only throw up our hands with Dominie Sampson and exclaim, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" Awesome.

  Japan Before Perry, by Conrad Totman is a good next step from the general histories into the increasingly more complex realm of looking into the history of Japan. Its purpose is to try to slightly lift the lens of the modern era to give a better view of the "origins" of modern Japan, and it does succeed at its task in a very readable way. It doesn't completely divorce the earlier history from our modern understanding, but it does make a good next step after the general overviews. The simple fact is that as you go back through time in Japanese history things get increasingly problematic, and some aspects are hellaciously acrimonious. Totman's book tends to not wade too deeply into contentious subjects, but doesn't gloss them over either. If you want a good introduction to the earlier realms of Japanese history, this book is a really good starting point.
  Sample text: "From both choice and necessity, then, the introduction of literacy to Japan entailed the introduction of far more than a medium of expression. Both content and context shaped the transformation that eventuated the classical age."

  After a while I was getting pretty tired of Emperors, samurai and Shogun. I wanted to know what life was like for regular people in Japanese history. Oddly, this is a harder subject to find information about than it would seem. After a couple false starts I came across Japan to 1600, by William Wayne Farris. The subtitle of this book is "a social and economic history", which I figured could go either way. It is, in fact, a fascinating book. From the earliest times through to the birth of the early modern Farris meticulously ploughs through every scrap of information apparently available about Japan and creates a narrative that fits all the pieces of that narrative together in a thoroughly thought engaging manner. He does a great job of balancing the entire picture of the multifaceted and complex stratification of Japanese society and shows how all the parts were intertwined. To be honest, when you have the entire picture laid out, it makes you a little curious why more attention isn't given to that entire picture of the society in other works. A great many things seemed to be left hanging in the air in other books after Farris makes you realize the impact of population changes, climate, disease, foreign migration, trade and conflict on the masses, making the rulers (so often the central theme in other works) often completely beholden to these larger, less flashy forces that shaped the lives of the ruled. These events and patterns greatly impacted the ruling classes, but the causes and effects are oddly not filled out in many other works, and certainly not as clearly as in Farris' writing. Part of this is likely because the author's main area of expertise is in archeology and pre-literate Japan, as addressed in another excellent book of his Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures. That book introduces some of the real tricky problems in early Japanese archeology, and the minefield that some of those problems have become. You get the feeling that because of the very touchy nature of archeology in Japan specifically and the larger world of East Asia in general, a great deal of importance is placed on the subtle interpretation of artifacts and documentation. Although it makes the field very much not for one to casually dive into, in books like Japan to 1600 you can certainly see the need and benefits of being meticulous. Great books, good writing.
  Sample text: "Shingen, too, took his armies with him in the spring, when grain from the previous year had been exhausted, calling that season "the time when we have no provisions." An advantage of leading sizable armies outside the domain was that it lessened the potential for starvation at home by reducing the resident population. In this sense, the wars were an expression of peoples' most elemental instinct to fill their belies."

 Where the books on Japan get interesting is when you start getting into the more specialized topics. As a general rule it seems that the people who actually bother to write about Japan and Japanese history tend to be oddly devoted to the subject. Given the almost minuscule volume of English language scholarship (comparatively speaking), the laser like focus on incredibly esoteric and narrow subjects treated in depth is amazing. There also seems to be a "style" to a lot of this writing that allows the author to remain in the book, so to speak. Perhaps due to the nature of having to submerge yourself in a culture that is so alien just to do basic research, the more specific the topic the more likely the book is to have an almost travelogue back beat in it, which I find wonderful.
  An excellent example of this is the book that started me thinking about this post: The Fox and the Jewel, by Karen A. Smyers. The book is a fairly exhaustive study of Japanese Inari worship and its rather curious individualistic nature. She amply covers the historical and theological background of the topic, but spent a good couple few years immersing herself in the culture of Inari in modern Japan and seems to have realized that the incredibly diverse and personal nature of people's relationships with their beliefs does not acquit itself to a dry sociological or anthropological study. As a result, it has more the feel of a piece of in depth journalism and makes for entertaining as well as educational reading. You truly get the sense that the personalities involved are as interesting as the lore itself and the bits of downright gossip-like narrative makes for a very good book. Period.
  Sample text: "Second, he goes overboard in describing all the phallic objects used in religious ways in Japan. In addition to fox tails and keys held in the foxes' mouths, which may reasonably be seen as phallic, he describes boulders on the mountain, stone lanterns, the Shinto fire drill, and Ainu inao worship sticks as phallic. Sometimes a cylindrical object is just a cylindrical object."

  One of my favorite specialty books, for reasons that should be obvious if you read the post on Umekoji, is Early Japanese Railways, by Dan Free. Free has apparently seen, collected or read every document in existence from the first moment that anything even slightly train related appeared in Japan. This is a book by an enthusiast for enthusiasts. Through its very well illustrated pages it charts the birth of what would eventually become the finest rail system in the world. Of course you have to give a damn about trains in general to think this is a good book, and you have to then give a damn about Japanese trains to think its a great book, but if you do...well this is a great book.
  Sample text: "Since compound locomotives used the residual power of steam more efficiently than simple locomotives that exhausted the steam after one passage through the cylinders, they were theoretically cheaper to operate, as they burned less coal for the same amount of work. For Japan, a country whose coal reserves were not overly abundant, this new technology was of interest."

  Shinto, the Kami Way, by Sokyo Ono (an older book, written in 1962), and Understanding Shinto, by C. Scott Littleton, a couple little wisps of books, are decent introductions that are likely to turn up in the religion section of your local chain bookstore. Neither is going to eat up much of your time, nor will you get to dive into some of the more complicated and interesting aspects of Shinto, but they do give a good overview. More than anything, they would be good as a general introduction to the sights and practices you would be likely to see if you were to visit a shrine and could therefore stave off some of the "hunh?" you would otherwise experience.
  Sample text: "The origin of the gateway which may or may not have come from the Asiatic mainland, and the reason for writing the word with the characters meaning "bird" (鳥 tori) and "to be" (居 i), that is "bird perch", need not detain us here. The origin is obscure and has no particular relevance to its present use."

  In contrast, A New History of Shinto, by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen is the English language book on Shinto. I goes into some fairly esoteric explorations in an attempt to dig through the many dense layers of history and accretion that make Shinto what it is today. It looks at the long, complex relationship between Shinto and Buddhism, how changing times lead to changing traditions, and goes into some depth on specific examples of rituals, lore, and sites that have evolved through the years. It is occasionally pretty dense and does require that A: you have a basic overview of Japanese history, and B: that you actually ever wanted to know this much about Shinto. It's not inaccessible to a casual reader, I'm just not sure why a casual reader would read it. Personally, I liked the meatiness of it, but I have no life so your mileage may vary.
  Sample text: "If Kanetomo's Daigengu was entirely egregious in structure, his Shinto thought was suitably subversive. His achievement was to create a Shinto that turned the traditional medieval worldview on its head. For all its Buddhist influences, Kanetomo understood one-and-only Shinto to exist before and beyond Buddhism."

Along with the above mentioned Farris books any of the books by J. Edward Kidder are really good introductions to Japanese archeology. In particular, Early Budhhist Japan and Himiko and Japan's Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai are particularly good. Both, however, exemplify the fact that a number of specialty books about Japan quickly run into tricky territory and therefore tend to expect a certain level of background understanding on the reader's part. I have found this to be the case time and time again that the contentious nature of certain topics and an awareness of the fact that these topics tend to be well off the mainstream English language reader's radar leads many of these books to be aimed squarely at a more scholarly audience. For a more casual reader Ancient Japan, from the "Making of the Past" series is a decent book. Its from one of those multivolume topic series that don't seem to exist anymore and reminded me in great measure of the Time-Life collections I loved when I was younger ("Planet Earth" was always a favorite. You can pick up individual volumes for, like, a buck on Amazon). Of course, this installment is by Kidder, so offers good info (as expected) but is of particular interest because it is extremely picture heavy, and therefore illustrates a number of specific sites and artifacts discussed in the literature, all the while being narrated by one of the stalwarts of the field.
  Sample text: "The fatefully prophetic remark in the temple's records that 'all the copper resources of the country' went into making of the Great Buddha goes far to explain why there are virtually no bronze statues in succeeding centuries. The temple's own Four Heavenly Kings, which were in bronze, according to the archives, are of polychromed, unbaked clay. They stand in Kaidan-in. Perhaps even the originals were sacrificed for repairs to the Buddha, its lotus or altar decorations".

An Archeological History of Japan, 30,000 B.C. to A.D. 700, by Koji Mizoguchi probably shouldn't be included here because despite its title I have no idea what this book is about. At certain points it is written with a clarity that leads you to believe it is, in fact, a book about Japanese Archeology by a noted, knowledgeable person, who makes some keen insights into the importance of the subtleties of the field, but then quickly lurches off into odd conceptual and semantic discussions the likes of which I can't or don't want to follow. Of course, what do you expect of a book with a chapter titled "The Topography of Scheduling: The Spatio-Temporal Organization of Social Life and the Jomon Self". Which I think I'll use as the sample text.

  And, Bam! There it is, the wall of boredom. I have officially hit the point where I can list no more books and remain awake, so I'll just leave it here and throw up some more later, maybe...if I feel like it. The good news is I've finished the book on Kanazawa that was delaying things so I should be back on schedule pretty soon.