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Title: Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose by John Nathan ISBN: 0-618-13894-3 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (7 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Why so many factual errors
Comment: I found this to be an interesting book, possibly more useful to someone not too well acquainted with Japan. BUT how can a book like this be published with so many factual errors? The Princess is not Masaka, but Masako. Nagano is not 100 miles from Tokyo, Tokyo is not the largest city in the world, Takasaki is not 200 miles from Tokyo, Ishihara did not get 319 million votes, etc. If these kind of errors are allowed in a book, how accurate is some of the other information? Rather disappointing.
Rating: 5
Summary: An eye opener
Comment: I liked this book very much. It was an eye opener to me because I had no idea that the school system was in such trouble and that the young people were dropping out of school or becoming violent. This seems pretty bad since Japan has the most rapidly aging society and they expect one day for there to be one worker for every retired person. Pretty depressing.
One thing that was also a surprise was Shintaro Ishihara's response to 9/11. He seems to think that American's are whining. And the Japanese resent the parallels to Pearl Harbor.
I like his references to Japanese authors. I've read many of the books he has translated, especially Oe. So, all in all its worth reading.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not bad
Comment: John Nathan has written an interesting book. In a way, this book shows how academics have lost control of the debate about Japan. It's no longer necessary to be a Harvard Ph.D. (like Nathan) in order to get an insider's view of the Japanese public school system. Nathan's chapter on what he discovered at a mediocre public school on the outskirts of Tokyo will seem like yesterday's news to any young American, Canadian, Australian, etc. who has taught within the confines of the system. Nathan also writes at length about how, in the 1960s, Japanese were shocked by his fluency in their native language. But times have changed, and Japanese today are much more accustomed to non-Japanese possessing at least a degree of proficiency in their language. The book's best chapters (they all deal with different subjects, so you can skip around rather than reading straight from page one to the end) deal with Yasuo Tanaka and Shintaro Ishihara, two writers-turned-politicians. This isn't surprising, since Nathan is a literature expert. The book contains many minor factual errors, but overall it's worth reading. I found it quite balanced and objective, a good antidote to those books that claim Japan is about to sink into the Pacific Ocean.
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Title: Saving the Sun: A Wall Street Gamble to Rescue Japan from Its Trillion-Dollar Meltdown by Gillian Tett ISBN: 006055424X Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Inventing Japan, 1853-1964 (Modern Library Chronicles) by Ian Buruma ISBN: 0679640851 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies by Ian Buruma, Avishai Margalit ISBN: 1594200084 Publisher: The Penguin Press Pub. Date: 25 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Colossus: The Price of America's Empire by Niall Ferguson ISBN: 1594200130 Publisher: The Penguin Press Pub. Date: 22 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader by Philip Stephens ISBN: 0670033006 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 05 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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