That's an interesting list with some titles I'd like to check out, and some that I've alredy read. I'm surprised that there weren't any books by Ian Buruma or Donald Richie, two people who have informed and interesting views about Japanese society.

From Buruma I would recommend: A Japanese Mirror,
The Wages of Guilt, The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (essays about Asia not just Japan).

From Richie: Partial Views and A Lateral View.

Also: Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes
In Prasie of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
The Anatomy of Dependence by Takeo Doi

"The Anatomy of Dependence by Takeo Doi"

I am familiar with his arguments from other works. I think a lot of it has been dismissed as Nihonjinron and that stopped me from going all out.

I read Donald Richie's Fads and Fashions and was not especially impressed.

I have been meaning to read Ian Buruma, but never got to it.

"Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes"

Is this book about Japan or the fantasy of Japan?

I saw you do have Dower's "Embracing Defeat" but I actually found his earlier work "War Without Mercy" far more interesting and provocative. You should check it out.

I've read parts of that - at least the chapter on the difference between demonizing Nazis as "bad Germans" but the Japanese as an entire evil race.

Richie's most interesting work for me is "Japan Journals".

Carol Gluck's "Japan's modern myth" is also worth reading.

No Maruyama Masao?Surely you are joking.Marxy.

I should read some MM. You have to understand that i am nominally a culture and society guy and got more into the "hard" side of things in the last few years.

I read RA Miller's "Japan's modern myth." I usually make it a policy not to read two books with the same name. Joking.

"got more into the "hard" side of things in the last few years."

This doesn't make any sense the way it7s written. I meant to say, I had to read a lot of economics/marketing type books PLUS specific stuff for my thesis. I only now have the time to go back and read these more general books.

You might like

"Law in Everday Japan - Sex, Suicide, Sumo and Statutes" by Mark D. West

It looks at how the law operates in a number of social settings.

Nice. My local library source seems to have most of your suggestions.

I'd like to second the recommendation for Richie's Japan Journals (especially since it has recently been panned elsewhere based on reviews of a review). The worth of the book is less in any theoretical or encompassing view of Japan that could be extracted (there he is indeed slightly simple-minded) than in his descriptions of people and places. Often what he writes is more interesting if taken as the object of study (what happens to perma-outsiders?) than as a study itself. If that makes sense.

Whee, since we are back on your biblography and i've had no luck besides getting some figures that only come out once a year and don't even include cancam or JJ, do you think the national diet Library prehapes have copies of abc reports, if so what titles i'm I looking for?

ChuckF - email me at marxy (at mark) neomarxisme.com and maybe I can send you some stats.

If you're going to read "Law in Everday Japan - Sex, Suicide, Sumo and Statutes" be sure to first read the journal article: The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant
John Owen Haley
Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 1978), pp. 359-390

if you haven't already. Its a very influential law article on the reasons for low Japanese litigation rates.

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