Category: Asia

Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan

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Few periods in Japanese history are more fascinating than the seventh century. This was the period when Buddhism experienced its initial flowering in the country and the time when Asukadera, Kudara Odera, Kawaradera, and Yakushiji (the “Four Great Temples” as they were called in ancient texts) were built. Despite their enormous historical importance, these structures have received only limited attention in Western literature, primarily because they are now ruins. Focus has been placed instead on Horyuji, a beautifully preserved structure, but not a key temple of the period. In The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan, Donald F. McCallum seeks to restore the four great temples to their proper place in the history of Japanese Buddhism and Buddhist architecture.

November 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3114-1 / $38.00 (CLOTH)

How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters

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At long last the approach that has helped thousands of learners memorize Japanese kanji has been adapted to help students with Chinese characters. Book 1 of Remembering Traditional Hanzi and Remembering Simplified Hanzi, by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson, cover the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.)

Traditional / October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3324-4 / $25.00 (PAPER)
Simplified / October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3323-7 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography

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“[In Riven by Lust: Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography], Jonathan Silk takes a tale that has major importance for the history of the development of Buddhism, a tale about the man who caused the major schism in Indian Buddhism, and traces it through all of the texts, in all of the major languages of Buddhism, with a bit of Greek and Latin thrown in for good measure. He traces the myth back to its probable early sources and forward to its labyrinthine developments through the Buddhist (and Hindu) world. And since it is a tale of mother-son incest, he discusses its implications in the light of contemporary psychological understandings of incest. It is a highly original work, with truly impressive scholarship, both in the breadth of knowledge and in the care with which all the relevant texts are cited and translated. Beautifully and fluently written, it will surely capture a large audience of scholars, students, and those who take a personal interest in Buddhism.” —Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3090-8 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan

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Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650–800, by Herman Ooms, is an ambitious and ground-breaking study that offers a new understanding of a formative stage in the development of the Japanese state. The late seventh and eighth centuries were a time of momentous change in Japan, much of it brought about by the short-lived Tenmu dynasty. Two new capital cities, a bureaucratic state led by an imperial ruler, and Chinese-style law codes were just a few of the innovations instituted by the new regime. Ooms presents both a wide-ranging and fine-grained examination of the power struggles, symbolic manipulations, new mythological constructs, and historical revisions that both defined and propelled these changes.

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3235-3 / $48.00 (CLOTH)

Kabuki’s Forgotten War

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According to a myth constructed after Japan’s surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. In Kabuki’s Forgotten War, 1931–1945, senior theater scholar James R. Brandon calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan’s imperial adventures.

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3200-1 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

The World of East Asia Series

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For more than half a century, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) possessed an independent police force that operated within the space of Japan’s informal empire on the Asian continent. Charged with “protecting and controlling” local Japanese communities first in Korea and later in China, these consular police played a critical role in facilitating Japanese imperial expansion during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Remarkably, however, this police force remains largely unknown. Crossing Empire’s Edge: Foreign Ministry Police and Japanese Expansionism in Northeast Asia, by Erik Esselstrom, is the first book in English to reveal its complex history.

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3231-5 / $59.00 (CLOTH)


Between 1932 and 1945, more than 320,000 Japanese emigrated to Manchuria in northeast China with the dream of becoming land-owning farmers. Following the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Japan’s surrender in August 1945, their dream turned into a nightmare. Since the late 1980s, popular Japanese conceptions have overlooked the disastrous impact of colonization and resurrected the utopian justification for creating Manchukuo, as the puppet state was known. This re-remembering, Mariko Tamanoi argues, constitutes a source of friction between China and Japan today. Memory Maps: The State and Manchuria in Postwar Japan tells the compelling story of both the promise of a utopia and the tragic aftermath of its failure.

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3267-4 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

For more information on the new World of East Asia series, click here.

The Record of Linji

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“[The Record of Linji] will be the translation of choice for Western Zen communities, college courses, and all who want to know that the translation they are reading is faithful to the original. Professional scholars of Buddhism will revel in the sheer wealth of information packed into footnotes and biliographical notes. Unique among translations of Buddhist texts, the footnotes to the Kirchner edition contain numerous explanations of grammatical constructions. Translators of classical Chinese will immediately recognize the Kirchner edition constitutes a small handbook of classical and colloquial Chinese grammar. It sets a new standard in scholarly translation of Buddhist primary texts.” —Victor Sogen Hori, McGill University

October 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2821-9 / $53.00 (CLOTH)

The Attractive Empire Now Available in Paperback

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The Attractive Empire: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan, by Michael Baskett, is now available in paperback.

“Michael Baskett removes imperial Japanese film from its solitary confinement and commandingly analyzes how it functioned internationally. He commits a depth of research rarely found in English-language studies of Japanese cinema, and his mastery of the primary and secondary sources from beyond Japan’s borders distinctly set his book apart from previous scholarship on the subject. Not only is this a work that historians and film scholars will appreciate but also one that I look forward to assigning to undergraduates.” —Barak Kushner, Cambridge University

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3223-0 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Prophet Motive Now Available in Paperback

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Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan, by Nancy K. Stalker, is now available in paperback.

“Nancy Stalker’s study of Deguchi Onisaburô and the Japanese new religion Oomoto sheds new light on issues of religious leadership, charisma and entrepreneurship. In analysing how one seminal new religion expanded in early twentieth-century Japan, she focuses on what she terms Onisaburô’s ‘charismatic entrepreneurship’ to demonstrate the close links between innovative leadership and religious success. In so doing she contributes significantly to the study of new religions by demonstrating the importance of entrepreneurial leadership and the close and essential links between religion and economics. . . . By widening her focus to the Japanese new religions in general, Stalker shows Onisaburô to be one of the most important figures in Japanese religious history. His activities, such as his espousal of art, internationalism and peace messages, have served as a virtual blueprint of activity for many subsequent Japanese religious leaders. She demonstrates further the significance of Oomoto as one of the most seminal new religions of the twentieth century.” —Ian Reader, University of Manchester

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3226-1 / $26.00 (PAPER)

Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature

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Literature, like food, is, in Terry Eagleton’s words, “endlessly interpretable,” and food, like literature, “looks like an object but is actually a relationship.” So how much do we, and should we, read into the way food is represented in literature? Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, by Tomoko Aoyama, explores this and other questions in an unusual and fascinating tour of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Tomoko Aoyama analyzes a wide range of diverse writings that focus on food, eating, and cooking and considers how factors such as industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, and gender construction have affected people’s relationships to food, nature, and culture, and to each other. The examples she offers are taken from novels (shosetsu) and other literary texts and include well known writers (such as Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Hayashi Fumiko, Okamoto Kanoko, Kaiko Takeshi, and Yoshimoto Banana) as well as those who are less widely known (Murai Gensai, Nagatsuka Takashi, Sumii Sue, and Numa Shozo).

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3285-8 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Chinese Healing Exercises

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Daoyin, the traditional Chinese practice of guiding the qi and stretching the body is the forerunner of Qigong, the modern form of exercise that has swept through China and is making increasing inroads in the West. Like other Asian body practices, Daoyin focuses on the body as the main vehicle of attainment; sees health and spiritual transformation as one continuum leading to perfection or self-realization; and works intensely and consciously with the breath and with the conscious guiding of internal energies. Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin, by Livia Kohn, explores the different forms of Daoyin in historical sequence, beginning with the early medical manuscripts of the Han dynasty, then moving into its religious adaptation in Highest Clarity Daoism. After examining the medieval Daoyin Scripture and ways of integrating the practice into Tang Daoist immortality, the work outlines late imperial forms and describes the transformation of the practice in the modern world.

“Livia Kohn is absolutely the source on the origins and great luminaries of Qigong, Tai Chi, and Chinese healing exercises. As the world’s appetite for stress mastery, wellness, and complementary medicine grows and the fields of health promotion and personal empowerment explode, there is a need for accurate reflection on the origins of China’s ancient power tools for well-being, healing, and longevity. Based on sound scholarship and accessible to a wide audience, this book fulfills that need.” —Roger Jahnke, OMD, Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi

A Latitude 20 Book
September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3269-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

The Shaolin Monastery Now Available in Paperback

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The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, by Meir Shahar, is now available in paperback.

“A real gift to martial arts enthusiasts and historians alike. Combining scholarly caution and respectful appreciation, Shahar shows how much and how little can be learned about the origins of the monastery in the fifth century, its close relationship with the Tang emperors (618–907), its flowering as a religious and military institution in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and the suspicion with which it was regarded by the Qing state (1644–1911). . . . This refreshingly original study is indispensable for understanding both the history and the hype.” —Choice

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3349-7 / $23.00 (PAPER)

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