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John Moore
For John Moore's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
CULTURE / Books
Nov 17, 1999
Window on the fragile world of the Ainu
LAND OF ELMS: The History, Culture and Present-Day Situation of the Ainu People, by Toshimitsu Miyajima, translated by Robert Witmer. Ontario, Canada: United Church Publishing House, 1998; 184 pp., 2,000 yen (paper). Some books are published before the happy ending even happens, which can give readers the wrong impression. So it is with this otherwise enlightening story of Ainu history and culture.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 19, 1999
Simple testimony to tragedy
COMFORT WOMAN, A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military, by Maria Rosa Henson, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., Lanham, MD, USA, 1999, 120 pages, $19.95 (paper). Here is yet another witness to World War II atrocities committed by Japanese forces. Maria Rosa Henson witnessed a great deal, not only with her eyes but with her whole body. She and the many others will not be silenced. They may be poor and may speak the simple language of the uneducated, but they will keep on giving witness.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 8, 1999
The 'nobody' who changed Japan
RYOMA: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, by Romulus Hillsborough. Ridgeback Press, San Francisco, 1999, 614 pages, $40 (cloth). Every country needs its heroes. Unfortunately, the great Japanese hero seems to have been a casualty of World War II. To this day, Japan tends to look all the way back to the Edo Period for its favorite heroes, including Sakamoto Ryoma, the "ronin" revolutionary who was instrumental in bringing about the Meiji Restoration.
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 1999
Half a biography of Fujimori
THE PRESIDENT WHO DARED TO DREAM: Alberto Fujimori of Peru, by Rei Kimura. Worcester, U.K.: Eyelevel Books, 184 pp., $14.90 (paper). Peru and Japan just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants' arrival in Peru on April 3, 1899. President Alberto Fujimori, himself the son of Japanese immigrants who landed in the 1930s, is one of the most successful presidents in Peru's history, having saved the country from terrorist insurgency and hyperinflation in the early 1990s. These factors point to a unique relationship linking Japan and Peru.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 1999
The view from the 20th floor
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS IN JAPAN, edited by Charles Pomeroy, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998, 367 pp., 3,700 yen (cloth). The image Japan projects abroad comes not only from the government or big business; it also arises from a certain private club occupying the 20th floor of a building overlooking the Ginza in Tokyo.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores