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An informational book about Japan, detailing history, culture and life up to the 1960s.
From the dust jacket:
'MODERN JAPAN hums like a dynamo.' One hundred million Japanese are packed into an area of 142,000 square miles. But only about one-fifth is habitable. Yet Japan is becoming the third most important industrial nation in the world and trade expands year by year.
Richard Storry tells one of the world's great success stories. Only during the nineteenth century did Japan emerge from centuries of feudal rule, when the great lords and their warlike samurai retainers often pushed the empire into bloody civil war. For 200 years all links with the outside world were cut. In 1868 the emperor regained full powers and from then on Japan asserted herself. She defeated China and Russia in two quick wars and plunged into the twentieth century.
Mr. Storry shows how rapidly the Japanese have recovered since their defeat in the Second World War. Their high intelligence means that they are quick to learn the techniques of modern life. They work fantastically hard to become Sekai ichi - the world's best. They also have rich traditions and a wonderful artistic heritage. They retain their Shinto and Buddhist faiths, their Noh and Kabuki theatre, their exotic Kemari football and sumo wrestling, and their insistence on the importance of family life.
The author is a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and has written several notable books on Japanese subjects.
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