BLESSED WITH OLD AGE: Demographic Change and the Family in Japan's Aging Society, edited by John W. Traphagan and John Knight. New York: State University of New York Press, 2003, 248 pp., $71.50 (cloth), $23.95 (paper). Aging is not what it used to be. Fuwaku, ...

GLOBAL JAPAN: The experience of Japan's new immigrant and overseas communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka and Paul White. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 241 pp., £65, (cloth). Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor ...

FOREIGN MIGRANTS IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, by Hiroshi Komai, translated by Jens Wilkinson. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001, 230 pp., AU$44.95 (paper) The Japanese economy has been in all but permanent recession for more than a decade. Yet, the number of foreign migrants has not diminished. ...

THE JAPANESE MODEL OF SCHOOLING: Comparisons with the United States, by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi. New York and London: Routledge Falmer, 2001, 219 pp., $80 (cloth) What role should schools play? Should they reflect the existing social order, or should they be active agents that set a ...

PRISONERS FROM NAMBU: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy, by Reinier H. Hesselink. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 215 pp., $47.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper) The Dutch presence in Japan during the Edo Period is one of the most intriguing episodes of Europe's ...

ORGANIZING THE SPONTANEOUS: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan, by Wesley Sasaki-Uemura. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 293 pp., $27.95 (paper) The events accompanying the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960 aroused strong emotions among those involved, making it difficult for a long ...

ENDURING IDENTITIES. The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan, by John K. Nelson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 324 pp., 5,271 yen (paper) In 1475, a fight erupted between the priests of a shrine in Kyoto and local farmers, who claimed that the ...

LANGUAGE PLANNING AND LANGUAGE CHANGE IN JAPAN, by Tessa Carroll, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 276 pp., 40.00 British pounds (cloth) Most countries consider their official language to be an area of state responsibility requiring "planning" by government agencies or special institutions. Language, from this point ...

HEGEMONY OF HOMOGENEITY: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron, by Harumi Befu. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001, 181 pp., A$44.95 (US$29.95) Nihonjinron, the discourse on "Japaneseness," has been with us for quite some time. As a recurring topic of discussion it resurfaces every once in a ...

THE GATES OF POWER: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan, by Mikael S. Adolphson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 456 pp., $29.95 (paper), $60.00 (cloth). Who rules Japan? This question has a modern ring to it and has been belabored by many ...