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Jeff Kingston is professor of history and director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan. He is the author of Nationalism in Asia: A History since 1945 and editor of Asian Nationalisms Reconsidered along with several books on Japan.

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Kingston's Contemporary Japan has been a useful overview of Japanese society, so I had high hopes for this collection of essays. Unfortunately, it is a mixed bag.

While there is only one total dud (a TPP cheerleading piece straight out of the USTR press office), there are a few common problems: too wide-ranging topics in too little space or an excess of optimism. The part on "social dilemmas" is badly hit by the former. The topics are very various, and many authors end up either staking wide-ranging claims without much grounding or alternatively end up spending most of their space on the topic's background. The optimism problem is particularly evident in an alternative energy article, where many official initiatives are listed (but Japan has a lot of official initiatives) and another on justice reform, which concentrates on lawyer training and the lay judge system (but the continuing issues of forced confessions and prosecutor-choreographed trials are mentioned very briefly).

Fortunately there is quite a lot of good too. To mention a few high points, Kingston's own contributions are up to the usual level. The island disputes both with Korea, China and Russia are well outlined in two articles. John Mock's article on the depopulation of rural Japan presents a good overview of an often-ignored topic. David Leheny's piece on hidden assumptions in criticism of Japan and the contradictions they cause is commendable.

As this collection demands some critical reading, I wouldn't recommend it (at least in its entirety) as an introduction to Japan's problems, but it is a useful read for a somewhat advanced student.
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sinivalas42 | Sep 6, 2014 |

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13
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126
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#159,216
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4.1
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1
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54

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