1 comments about Women of the Mito Domain: Recollections of Samurai Family Life.

1. This is a very realistic and engaging account of samurai life just before the Meji restoration. Samurais are not idealised in this book, but instead their every day life is described. The focus is on women, as it retells history mainly from the view of the author's mother, but as women were completely dependent on men at the time, a lot of the account deals with how men as well as women lived. Topics such as school, dress, dwellings, amusments, family, marriage and divorce are covered, and at the same time the unrest in Mito domain before the restoration. The grandfather of the author had his own school and worked at the Office of Japanese History. He was one of the lower class samurai, but was recognized by the daimyo for his great learning and taught even his children at some point.
   If you want to understand Japanese society in the 19th century up to the Restoration, this is an extremly interesting book. Highly recommended!

5 comments about Japanese Design Motifs: 4,260 Illustrations of Japanese Crests.

1. I bought the book for my son and he loved everything about it. The illustrations are teriffic.



2. This book is simply the best. I found my maternal grandfather's mon and my paternal grandmother's crest in this book. It is quite comprehensive. Reading japanese kanji is a plus as you can then read descriptions next to appropriate mon. Graphic artists studying oriental design will find more than 4,000 designs that have existed for hundreds of years. There is inspiration aplenty for all artists.



3. It hadn't occurred to me that this could be a research source for geneaology, but i'm glad to see that it's useful for those searching for ancestral emblems. I appreciate this book as a source for small, clip art versions of Japanese graphic design.
   As any user of clip art knows, it only takes one application from a source to pay for the cost of the book and this one has more than paid its way.



4. Im in graphic design and using this book has helped me so much! Hundreds of pages bombarded with close to 3x3 thumbnails-so much info that it will probably take a very long time to actually notice each design. Some people dont like this book because all designs are set into a limited palette of insignias. The point is not to look at what the overall shape of the thumbnail is but at the specific contours, combinations. There's a variety from organic to geometric shapes. Some designs look modern, others ancient, others are used today i.e. radiation symbol. All of these designs come from an Asian background which is so design and logo-oriented that it most definitely helps you find that "swoosh" or certain attitude you're looking for. Overall, Dover books have great graphics!



5. This book is a good tool to find the Japanese family Kamon.
   It is a very good reference!

5 comments about Soong Dynasty.

1. A very intriguing look at the power behind the power in China before the Communist takeover. Justice was definitely denied for the Chinese people whose national bank reserves were looted by this family. What is more enraging to learn from this book is the blatant robbery of U.S. foreign aid cash by this Soong family and the Chiang Kaishek regime, which was the most corrupt government in the world. I guessed Harry Truman said it in the most poignant way: "..the Soong is nothing but a bunch of thieves.." And I agree with him. It is is sad that all the loots were never returned to the people of China. The Soong represented the worst of the Chinese in that era which were greed, power hunger, blind ambitions, criminal behaviors and worst of all China was run by the de facto criminal organization behind generalissimo Chiang Kaishek.



2. This book tells the story of Charlie Soong' children, each of whom connected with a part of China's transition into the modern world at the beginning of the 20th century. Wonderfully told.



3. Seagrave's view of pre-World War II Chinese history consists of equal parts of conspiracy and corruption. These elements are certainly present in Chinese history, but Seagrave's presentation is so biased, confused, and poorly documented that no one should accept his account without careful research.
   
   For conspiracy, the most notable claims are that the Kuang-hsu emperor was poisoned (116), that the Dowager Empress Tz'u-hsi was poisoned (116), that Yuan Shikai was poisoned (text on 162 says uremia, footnote on 480 says "Such medical diagnoses were suspicious at best. Was it ever possible, organically, for a Borgia to die a natural death?"), that Charlie Soong was poisoned (142-3): "The facts surrounding Charlie Soong's death are obscure... the possibility of foul play has always existed... Euphemistically, stomach cancer was as common in revolutionary Shanghai as lead poisoning was in Chicago and Marseille." Seagrave goes on like this for almost a page in an exceptionally tendentious passage. There is of course zero documentation for all of these claims.
   
   In a way though, these claims are almost trivial. It makes no difference to Seagrave's narrative whether these people were poisoned or not. A much more essential point is the central role that Seagrave claims the Green Gang played. Unfortunately, Seagrave's account of the Green Gang has many problems. Brian G. Martin, whose book "The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime" is probably the best account of the Green Gang in English, says that Seagrave's account, "with its conspiratorial view of Chinese history in the 1920s and 1930s and of Jiang Jieshi's rise to power, sacrifices historical fact for sensationalist effect." (2)
   
   This is not an overstatement. One of the strangest things in "The Soong Dynasty" is how Seagrave identifies the well-known Green Gang boss Chang Hsiao-lin as a member not of the Green Gang, but of the "Blue Gang". The Chinese name of the "Green Gang" was "qing bang," with the word qing referring indifferently to both green and blue. Thus many early accounts of the Gang refer to them as the "Blue Gang." The Comintern representative Sneevliet regularly calls them this in his reports. The "Blue Gang" is the "Green Gang" and the "Green Gang" is the "Blue Gang." How Seagrave confused one gang into two I have no idea.
   
   Rather than rendering his account more difficult, however, this seems to open a door for Seagrave. Huang Chin-jung, Tu Yueh-sheng, and Chang Hsiao-lin were the Shanghai gangster troika, mentioned in numerous books. What Seagrave does is largely replace Chang Hsiao-lin, the Green Gang boss, with Chang Ching-chiang, one of the "four elder statesmen" of the Kuomintang, and a close advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. Thus Huang, Tu, and Chang Ching-chiang appear in various combinations throughout the book. Chang is an intimate of Tu (161), a business partner of Tu (163-4), a kidnapper like Tu and Huang (212), and so on. This is how Seagrave grafts Tu and the Green Gang onto Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT. Was Chang Ching-chiang really an important member of the Green Gang? He is mentioned in Brian Martin's book only once, as someone Tu and Huang were appealing to to continue the Shanghai purge in 1927. This is in contrast to Chang Hsiao-lin (Zhang Xiaolin), who occupies large chunks of Martin's book.
   
   Putting aside the conspiratorial events, the historical events Seagrave attempts to recount are so confused and contradictory that C. Martin Wilbur calls "The Soong Dynasty" "a travesty of a book from a historical viewpoint." (Wilbur's "China in My Life", p. 285). This is very bad for people who read "The Soong Dynasty" for history, rather than scandal or speculation.
   
   Anachronistic (or at least highly confusing) statements are a major part of this problem. A striking example is Seagrave's account of the Western Hills meeting (November 1925). He first quotes Isaacs' description of the goal of the meeting as being to "Ally with Chiang to overthrow Wang (Ching-wei)." Why overthrow Wang? According to Seagrave, Wang was "too weak to prevent a Communist coup. He had just convened a Second Party Congress that placed most of the critical departments of the southern government in the hands of the CCP and other leftists" (210). It seems to me a reasonable interpretation of this is that Seagrave thinks that first Wang convened the second party congress and then the Western Hills reactionaries decided to dump him. But the Second Party Congress was held in January 1926, after the Western Hills meeting. Why overthrow Wang? Try Wilbur's book "The Nationalist Revolution in China" (30-32). Wilbur gives a clear discussion of the factionalism facing the KMT at this point. Anachronisms aside, Seagrave is lost, complaining in his footnotes that these are "murky developments." (484)
   
   An even more startling discussion is Seagrave's account of the "First Shanghai Uprising" (217). Apparently Seagrave got this from Harold Isaacs' "Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution", but compare Seagrave with Isaacs (p. 131 of the 1961 edition), or even better, with "Missionaries of Revolution" by Wilbur and How (p. 328-329). Seagrave's account is simply wrong, adding in the Green Gang with no sources, misidentifying people, misunderstanding the circumstances, claiming "large numbers" of casualties and a blow to the Communists, where Wilbur and How list documents that give the casualties as 10 people killed, and Isaacs, the champion of the labor groups involved, dismisses the event with the remark "The incident passed almost unnoticed on the fringe of events."
   
   "The Soong Dynasty" does provide some interesting information in the earlier part of the book on Charlie Soong, father of the six Soong children. In particular, Charlie's success as a businessman and his work on behalf of Sun Yat-sen has been neglected, and there is still no extended account of these available today. Unfortunately, most of Seagrave's materials on these aspects is also poorly documented. Thus Seagrave claims that Soong joined the Hung-men Society ("the Red Gang") "shortly before the 1888 Chinese New Year celebration" (57), but gives no source for this. All of his comments about Charlie's activities and the Red Gang: that he was introduced by his brothers-in-law (58), that he printed the Gang's secret papers (57), that Gang members provided capital for his business ventures (60), that he bought the building for his printing shop through the Gang (61), that the steamship Charlie and his family fled to Japan on in 1912 was owned by the Gang (130), are all unsourced.
   
   It is a pity that Seagrave's book turns out to be so unreliable; it would be nice if there were one book that covered the people and events of this period, but I don't think there is one single work that does this. Wilbur's books are solid historical accounts, and Brian Martin's book has excellent documentation, though the Green Gang, like the Mafia, is murky water. As for the history of the Soongs, despite Seagrave's massive onslaught, the field remains barren.



4. Really, this is the worst sort of hatchet job by a man obsessed with Chiang Kai-shek and the evil he is thought to have done. Seagrave has written some truly awful stuff, generally based on one twisted bit of history, and generally made toxic by his loathing for CKS, the Soong family, Claire Chennault, and indeed anyone and anything associated with Nationalist China.
   
   For a more recent, scholarly, and honest portrayal of CKS and those who surrounded him, see the excellent The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Belknap Press), a recent biography by Jay Taylor, published by a division of Harvard University Press.
   
   As for this book, I give it two stars instead of the one it probably deserves, because as other reviewers have pointed out, it is an entertaining read. The same of course can be said by anything from Nora Roberts.



5. There were many things I liked about this book, and a few that I did not, and it all adds up to a decent rating. I rate this book 3.5, not 4 stars. It's better than a 3 in my opinion, but just is not quite a 4. Having read 'Dragon Lady' by this very same author and finding it very well-written and researched, I have to say that I found this book to be somewhat disappointing. It was not quite the same caliber as 'Dragon Lady', since this book has more speculation, and actually says negative things about Tzu Hsi/Cixi even though in 'Dragon Lady' such suggestions are shot down.
   
   This book was a long one, and I found some parts plodding. However, it gave me a good overview on Chinese history and what happened between the KMTs and the Communists. Having read several historical Chinese novels set through various times and ages (Empress Orchid, the Last Empress, Peony in Love among others, as well as biographies and auto-biographies (Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah, Red Azalea by Anchee Min), I can honestly say that the knowledge of Chinese history in here is rather informative, and you will learn a lot about China itself as long as you have the patience to actually read it all.

1 comments about Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, And Legacy (Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center).

1. Ethnic Nationalism: Genealogy, Politics, And Legacy by Gi-Wook Shin (Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center) explores the roots, politics, and legacy of Korean ethnic nationalism. Descriptively analyzing the separation and differences in the communist north and democratic south of the Korean peninsula, Ethnic Nationalism addresses the general identity formation of the two Koreas. A core addition to academic library International Studies reference collections, Ethnic Nationalism is strongly recommended to the attention of political science, sociology, and cultural anthropology students studying the contrasts and similarities of North and South Korea through their collective history of anti-colonialism, civil war, authoritarian politics, democratization, territorial division, and globalization.

5 comments about Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan.

1. I always find it fascinating when I reach a completely different conclusion than a noted awards organization like the Pulitzers. But after slogging through over half of Herbert Bix's book, "HIROHITO AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN," I cannot imagine how this book received much of any award.
   
   I guess at some level it is not a complete washout. The book is obviously meticulously researched. As a reference for academics, it will probably have real value. But in terms of simple readability, it is a disaster.
   
   For me, it seems Bix has been immersed in Japan and Japanese culture for way too long. Like a lot of experts, he tends to speak in a bit of a short hand without remembering that it makes it difficult for laymen to follow.
   
   For better or worse, most Americans are not terribly familiar with Japanese history and culture, especially as it relates to pre-WWII. So the huge cast of characters that Bix throws at you is overwhelming because most readers are not going to know who any of them are. His introductions to each of these characters tend to be very brief and there are so many of them (and so many names that are all alien to begin with) that it becomes almost dizzying. You are constantly flipping over to the index to figure out who someone is that hasn't been mentioned in 50 pages.
   
   Cabinets rise and fall with blinding speed and without much explanation for how or why. Japanese cultural points are raised without deep explanation and without reinforcement later in the text. And the prose itself is leaden. It is not a read so much as a slog. You endure it more than you enjoy it.
   
   More bothersome is that Bix has a clear agenda in the biography. His take? Hirohito was a conniving jerk who misled everyone about his role during the war. Other than being an upright family man, Bix's Hirohito is a Machiavellian slimeball constantly making poor choices and then finding ways to foist the consequences on others.
   
   Now for all I know, this may be totally accurate. But the text reads as almost seething in its anger. I have no issue with a writer presenting an opinion and a point of view. That is a role of the historian and the biographer--to interpret the facts and put them into context. But Bix never lets it go to simply tell the story of his subject. He is constantly slamming Hirohito. Again, his criticism may be sound. It probably is. But it so pervasive that at some point you begin to wonder whether or not Bix is presenting all the facts. Based on the enormous "notes" section of this book, he probably is, but at some point he just needed to tell the story. If the problems and hypocrisy in Hirohito's life are as pronounced as he says they are, that will likely come through to the reader without having to ham-handedly beat the man page after page. It reads less like a biography and more like a polemic.
   
   The only reason I am giving this any stars at all is because I feel I am obligated to give some credit to the sheer depth of research that is evident in the work. This is truly a scholarly effort in its research and I suspect the underlying source documents cited will make this a great reference for future scholars seeking information on the subject. But I found the writing itself to be bad and the Bix's anti-Hirohito agenda to just be overwhelming.
   
   This is an important story that needs to be told. But Bix's work is not the book that gets it done. Obviously, based on the accolades this book received from critics, other readers and Pulitzer committee puts me in the minority but I really am left wondering what book they read when they heaped their praise on this work.



2. My wife is Chinese, to this day there still exists a great deal of hate in China for Japan and her actions during the war. I say this to clarify I am no fan of Hirohito or Imperial japan.
   
   What I had hoped to get an objective review of Hirohito and his role before and during the war. Instead what I got from this book was a foaming at the mouth rabid attack Hirohito all in the first few pages. I really had thought people such as Bix might have grown out of fanatical Marxism.
   
   This is the only time I have thought about asking for a refund from Amazon for a book. I suppose I should have read the reviews of others before buying.



3. The author of this Pulitzer-winning bio of Emperor Hirohito had to work without most of the basic tools of his trade. The emperor had written a diary and letters to his family. Neither was open to the writer. Nor were the McArthur files in the US. Alas, this need to work around the center and without key access takes a toll: the sources are generally of the bureaucratic kind.
   Bix's main thesis is this: the emperor was a man who had much more influence than he later admitted. He was not the powerless figurehead that McArthur and he himself liked to describe for the benefit of world opinion. In real life, this emperor was an active player until the end of WW2. He became the figurehead that he claimed to have been only after the US occupation. It seems quite clear that he was much involved in the steady escalation of Japan's aggression against China and in the attack on the US and SE Asia.
   
   We follow H's education during turbulent times: his grandfather Meiji waged war against China and Russia, took Taiwan, Korea, and Sakhalin as colonies, and put a foot into Southern Manchuria (taking Port Arthur from Russia). Japan's later expansionism beyond the Meiji frontiers had been seeded in the minds of the militarist elite already during WW1. Expelling the Germans from their Chinese colony was not just a favor to the Brits. China was already targeted to become a Japanese protectorate, and the Russians needed to be pushed out of Manchuria entirely. Moving the Dutch out of their East Indies was another vision. This whole great concept was based on a racist theory according to which the Japanese as the supreme yellow man had to lead the fight against the white man. This required a sphere of dominance: Asian Monroeism.
   
   H was trained in a contradictory three-pronged way: he had a scientific training and inclination; he even became an amateur marine biologist. But he was also prepared for a role as spiritual leader and got an injection of a strong militarist spirit. Part of his official role was to be the supreme commander of Japan's military machine, and he was also going to be head of his religious cult, the Shinto. And more than that, he was to be a god.
   
   The 1920s were a messy period in most parts of the world. (Only the US, among the major places, had the good fortune to find a decent leadership out of their crisis.) In Japan, H's reign as the Showa Emperor brought a new level of exalted nationalism, including his own deification as the embodiment of the nation's racial community. It brought dictatorship, militarism, glorification of war. Though H was certainly no Fuehrer or Duce type, the term fascism seems justified from most perspectives.
   
   The new expansion of the empire starts in 1931 with the military move to annex the north eastern provinces of China. Manchukuo is set up as a pseudo independent state in 32. The occupation is step by step expanded from Manchuria into other provinces.
   H was not sitting on the sideline in all this, but actively involved on a daily basis.
   The invasion into the Chinese heartland starts in 37. It may be fair to say that the communist victory in the Chinese civil war was much helped by the Japanese focus on fighting Chiang kai-Shek's forces and leaving the communists comparatively undiminished.
   H was fully supporting the undeclared China war. He authorized military expansions, poison gas use, bombing raids, and annihilation campaigns, which killed millions of Chinese. POW protection under international law was not practiced by Japan.
   
   Japan was hesitant how to align internationally. When the Germans seemed to overrun Europe, and had a non-aggression treaty with the SU, Japan's rulers thought it was a good idea to ride piggyback and benefit from the collapse of the colonial empires of Britain, Holland and France. That would solve some of the raw material problems. The southern expansion was a part of the big chess came that Japan lost. It is plausible that the leaders did not really expect a victory over the US, but a German victory in Europe and a smashing defeat of America's European allies might have provided a basis for an advantageous draw.
   
   The build up of the decision to go for the attack on the US is one main subject of the book. So is the war phase with H as commander in chief - not a very good c-i-c. The next is H's role in the acknowledgement of defeat: he was a main engine of the `fight on' faction.
   The next subject is the post war process of cover up and reconstruction, led by McArthur. It all started from learned lessons after Versailles: one should not humiliate losers unnecessarily. Was the lesson carried too far in keeping the emperor in his job?
   
   Since I am not very familiar with the details of the Japanese ruling class, I can't judge the truthfulness of Bix's picture. The China related parts strike me as solid, equally the SE Asia parts as far as I am familiar with them. The book can't be the decisive biography as many key documents were not available. Will they ever be?



4. Hirohito, by Herbert Bix, is history but also a tract: Bix is
   convinced that Hirohito himself didn't take, or get,
   enough blame for events -- the scholars' debate since 1945 has been
   whether he was guilty or just a puppet victim like Pu Yi.
   
   Along the way, Bix carefully picks through all sorts of interesting
   East-West cultural misunderstandings, particularly regarding groupthink
   and peer pressures and reverence for elders & emperors, and weird
   Western ideas like "democracy". Some great choice situations get
   described, several of them famous: face-offs with generals, grand
   policy and wartime decisions.
   
   Yet when he gets to "guilt", Bix is relentlessly Western: he often
   attributes powers over other men to a very young Hirohito, in a society
   which reveres its elders -- interesting question whether Japanese
   elder statesmen & admirals & generals, or a young emperor, would have
   received the greater deference in such situations. Bix often asserts
   that Hirohito did dominate, then doesn't document it -- a Westerner is
   left with the feeling that the evidence for the hanging is somewhat
   circumstantial, here.
   
   The book is wonderfully complemented by a movie currently showing: "The Sun", by
   Alexander Sokurov -- "A meditation on Emperor Hirohito set at the time
   of Japan's World War II surrender, it takes place in a world almost
   totally sealed off from reality" --
   [...]



5. I first looked at this book to help me write a chapter in a textbook. Before long I had ordered my own copy and began the long process of digesting this tome! The chapters are long and the attention to detail can lead to frustration. However, this has corrected my understanding of Japan leading up to, during, and following World War II. I will use the information gleaned to correct every history textbook with which I come into contact that covers this period of history. This is a first-rate work and every history teacher should know something of its contents!

5 comments about The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family.

1. Mai's book is an excellent way for American readers to understand the Vietnam war as well as Vietnamese culture, especially how they have reacted to French colonization, the American war period and the difficult choices that had to made about who to side with. It's a unique and important book that's gripping and important.



2. I bought this book prior to a vacation in Vietnam. This is painless history! Although the book is long (nearly 500 pages) and very heavy to carry on an airplane, it was worth it. I learned so much about the historical differences that led to the Vietnam war and the succeeding political situations. I feel really prepared now for this trip in terms of understanding the context for my travels both to Hanoi and to Saigon.
   If you want to get an understanding of the history of this country from prior to the French occupancy to the Communist era, I would recommend this book.



3. I highly recommend this book for all young 2nd generation Vietnamese-Americans, like myself, who want to learn about their family's culture and past. This book should be included in any Asian American Studies class or curriculum.
   Well done, Mrs. Duong-Elliot! Thank you for writing such an insightful, moving and educational story about your family and Vietnam. Not only did I learn more about the Vietnamese people, but I learn more about who I am.



4. The Sacred Willow is a book about Vietnam and it's history portrayed by the life of one Vietnamese family. Unlike most books about the war in Vietnam, this book offers the views of the Vietnamese themselves instead of the views of foreigners. Another important aspect is the fact that Elliot shows the opinons and values of both the people who support and are against the Viet Minh. This is done by the views of her family and the views of her sister Thang, who leaves to fight for the Viet Minh. While studying abroad Elliot is able to get an outside perspective and begins to feel a connection to the Viet Minh, at least to the point that she understands why they are willing to fight.
   
   I did enjoy this book becuase it directly tied into my history class, but if it was not for that I do not know if I would of truely enjoyed it. The book is fascinating, since it gives American readers the views of the Vietnamese that we were fighting for in the Vietnam War. Another plus, is the reader does not have to be familiar with Vietnamese history beacuse Elliot does an excellent job describing the historical events. However, the book is a little dry, a very long read, and a little bias toward the Viet Minh (Elliot did grow up in a family that strongly despised the communists). I would probably only recomened it for modern history lovers, those who have an appreciation for Vietnam or the Vietnamese War. The book is definitely not for leisure readers.



5. This is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary woman. Of all the Vietnam narratives I've read, this is the first to give us a detailed picture of life in a Vietnamese mandarin family, a milieu which most of us who were there never knew existed. Moreover, this is a history of Vietnam seen from all sides because Mrs. Elliott's family members were involved in all the events that shaped the modern history of her native land from the French occupation to today's united Vietnam under communist rule. She spares no details and some of them must've been very painful for her to write about, especially the foibles of certain prominent family members whom she describes objectively and without emotion, and with all their warts. That kind of honesty is refreshing in a book like this and frankly makes her subjects' vulnerably human in spite of their extraordinary accomplishments. No mistake about it, the Duong family produced some extraordinary individuals but in Mrs. Elliott's narrative they put their robes on the same way everyone else does.
   
   Mrs. Elliott is also the author of the magisterial RAND IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. She was a RAND employee in the 1960s working as an interrogator and translator in the Vietcong Motivation and Morale Study commissioned by the Department of Defense. This effort produced hundreds of in-depth interviews with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese POWs and defectors which today are a priceless archive of the ordinary communist fighter's life in the jungle. When Lee Lanning and I wrote INSIDE THE VC AND THE NVA we relied heavily on these interviews some of which were conducted by Mrs. Elliott herself. We used other RAND reports, particularly "Documents of an Elite Viet Cong Delta Unit: The Demolition Platoon of the 514th Battalion," authored by Mrs. Elliott and her husband, David.
   
   If only we'd paid closer attention to what the Elliotts and their colleagues were finding out about our communist enemy in Vietnam we might've gained valuable insights. And, as she very perceptively points out in this book, if we'd only done a similar study on our South Vietnamese ally we might've taken a different course in Vietnam than the one that led to disaster and the vast diaspora Mrs. Elliott describes in this book.
   
   Mrs. Elliott was only a child when the first Indochina War ended. She grew up in a privileged environment, went to the best schools, was educated at Georgetown at the American taxpayer's expense, married an American intellectual, and was safe here in the States when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese juggernaut. She never knew the ordinary people of Vietnam, the soldiers, the bar girls, the prostitutes, the street vendors, the street urchins, the rural villagers, not like the average GI and if he was an infantryman, he knew the Vietnamese countryside better than this author ever could, better, in fact, than many of his communist enemies fresh off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Of her siblings none were killed in the war.
   
   But when the Duongs fled their country in 1975, those who didn't stay behind to experience concentration camps or victory in the ranks of the VC and the NVA, they came with nothing except a will to survive and provide for their children. A hundred-year membership in the mandarinate was worthless to these new immigrants. We should never forget it's people like them who've made this country what it is.
   
   Yes, Mrs. Elliott reveals in this book that she shared the anti-war views of the American intelligentsia which at the time outraged me and if I'd have met her back then I don't think I'd have liked her -- I'd have considered her a communist stooge. But she was right that the way we & our South Vietnamese ally were pursuring that war would end in failure and while she had close relatives who were devoted communists, she's not one herself, she's Vietnamese and that is a BIG difference.
   
   My son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren have all been back to Vietnam. It's not the same country it was in 1975. Mrs. Elliott doesn't beat you over the head with this fact, but it's clear and one might wonder who really won that war. My barber, a Vietnamese immigrant, wasn't even born when I first went there & he was but a baby when I left. That, Mrs. Elliott tells us in this book, is how we come to terms with the past, by living through and beyond it. Her family did it and so can the rest of us.

5 comments about Diary of Lady Murasaki (Penguin Classics).

1. First off, Although the book i s 91 pages long there is a 52 page introduction. The introduction by Bowring is very well done, especially for those who are unfamiliar with Heian era Japan, like me. Bowring gives adequate introductions to the architecture, dress, religion, and other things of culture at the time. Although the info he gives of Murasaki Shikibu is scant, he does give the reader all of the information that is known about the author of the Genji monogatari. The diary itself is a wonderful resource of Heian era Japan. Murasaki Shikibu gives wonderfully detailed descriptions of ceremonies, dress, and glimpses of daily lives of females in the court. Bowring adds wonderfully helpful footnotes to aid teh reader. Also the illustrations inb the book are wonderful for showing how the Heian lady dressed and how a Heian era mansion looked. Good little book.



2. And a companion piece ot the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. The world of courtiers and courtesans, intrigues, affairs.
   
   Daily soaps will never be exciting once you've read this book! WOW!



3. The Diary of Lady Murasaki is a very fine read, even by today's standards. Sadly short due to age, it still offers an amazing insight into court life of the time.
   
   The book's coverage of both important court events and the personal outlook of Murasaki herself on everything from fashion to her contemporaries is eye-opening to say the least. Great attention is paid to detail where she was able to remember any detail at all, and when she does not remember detail, she always made a note of why. Perhaps the most refreshing part of the book is the honesty in her observations. She seldom seems to mince words, which is not something that I would expect from anyone at all familiar with court politics.
   
   The book is especially valuable given the lack of other documents to come out of the period.



4. The diary of Lady Murasaki is the court diary of the author of the Tale of Genji - an 11th century masterpiece of japanese literature. Although Murasaki Shikibu has been dead for over 1000 years this diary brings to life Murasaki and the imperial court. It recounts an important period at court with the birth of Empress Shoshi's first son. We are given details into court ceremonies, life, fashion, and attitudes. Excellent read, especially if you're interested in Japan.



5. This penguin volume is the paperback and easily accessed translation of the 'Diary of Murasaki Shikibu', a fragmentary piece written by the author of the much more famous and inspired 'Tale of Genji'. As Genji is probably the best work in all the history of Japanese literature, and as we know so little about its author, this diary (which is a fragented remain of the possible original) has acquired a certain relevance it would otherwise lack from purely literary and quality arguments.
   
   The diary as said is a fragmented and patched-up remain of the original one that Murasaki Shikibu might have noted down. It mainly describes the events of 2 years when she was in the service of Empress Shoshi at the Tsuchimikado Palace. The main event in more than half of the book is the birth of Prince Atsunada, son of Shoshi and the reigning Emperor (Go-Ichijo) and grandson of Fujiwara no Michinaga (the all-powerful regent of that period of Heian Japan). The first 50 or so sections describe in detail the ceremonies held and gives a glimpse of courtier life of the times, so different from the idealized view that Murasaki would forge in the Genji. Here the courtiers tend to be rude, unsubtle and drunk, and the ladies (Murasaki included) bored, insecure and with a high tendency to gossip and critizising everyone else. The second part of the book includes some semblances of fellow-maids and courtiers, some of which were famous poets on their own (Ise no Taifu, Akazome Emon, Sei Shonagon), some ritual Gosechi Dances at the Imperial Palace and Murasaki's absence from the Courtly World. As in all Heian-era diaries, the events described are interspersed with poems written by Murasaki and others for the occasion. Heian courtiers were expected to produce them quite spontaneously as a matter of fact.
   
   Don't get me wrong: the diary as it is has its interest and its beauties. Some of the poems are very good, and some of the paragraphs have been clearly polished and noted down by a master writer, like the first scene of the book, describing the arrival of late autumn at the Tsuchimikado Palace and the lovely combination of the sight of the waters in the Palace lake with the sound of the chanting of the monks. Nevertheless, it is a work of marginal interest if you aren't extremely interested in Heian Japan, the court life of the eleventh century and/or Murasaki Shikibu. I consider it well worth the read, but definitely a minor, anecdotic text.
   
   As for this edition: it is inspired in a previous one, made by Richard Bowring in the 80s and published by Princeton. The old text (it can still be bought second-hand) is more academic (which isn't necessarily a virtue for the lay reader) but has the advantage over the penguin edition in that it also includes the 'poetic memoirs' of Murasaki (that is to say, a colection of a bit over 100 poems by the author, most with explanatory prefaces). It is a pity that the Penguin edition discarted these poems, and being a very small volume, there would have been no space troubles about it.

5 comments about The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (Kodansha Globe).

1. Mr Morris is my hero! He manages to make an extremely complex subject a joy to read and study...Gosh, i wish other subjects could be this engaging. In the world of the shining prince everything has a protocol and a reason to been, Mr Morris manages to explain many important details that may, at first, be just tiny observations and passing glances in the story. This study book provides readers with tools to better understanding the kilometric "Tale of Genji"



2. This book really enhances, enlarges and clarifies one's understanding of Lady Muraski's world and though not necessary reading really enriches one's reading of The Tale of Genji.



3. I would recommend this book to anyone who is going to read "The Tale of Genji." Elegantly written, with discreet touches of humour here and there, it should help enormously in getting to grips with the superficially accessible, but actually wholly alien and remote world of the Heian court.



4. Ivan Morris wrote the essential guide to understanding the classical literature and culture of Heian Japan in this book.
   
   Everything you ever wanted to know about rarified, indeed *deified* Japanese court life in the 11th century A.D. is here. From directional taboos to de rigeur blackened teeth (and other fashion highlights) to bureaucratic hierarchies - it's all here, in engaging and accessible prose.
   
   We often think of the samurai ethos when we think of Japan, but the roots of Japanese culture developed in the 9th century, when imported Chinese concepts of governance and culture were assimilated. Morris describes how the Heian elite absorbed and transformed Chinese philosophy, and how Shinto beliefs operated in harmony with the teachings of Buddha.
   
   This is an enormously entertaining book, especially in its depiction of the politics and morality of the courtiers.



5. Based principally on Murasaki Shikibu's `The Tale of Genji', and also Sei Shonagôn's "Pillow Book', Ivan Morris brushed an in depth picture of Japan around the end of the first Millennium.
   
   Japanese society, overall climate
   In a country full of epidemics, famines, earthquakes, fires and superstitions the overall mood was somber with some bright spots on ceremony days.
   A tiny fraction (0.1 %) of the population had a privileged status. The rest could barely survive, burdened with heavy taxation, forced labor and conscription.
   In her book `That Mighty Sculptor, Time', Marguerite Yourcenar called the Japanese aristocracy, `the nobility of failure.'
   
   Political economic, financial, social, administrative powers
   The ruling emperor had only two representative functions: a sacerdotal one (religion) and a cultural one (arts).
   Political power was in the hands of one (!) family, which consolidated its power base mainly through marriages (imperial consorts for child emperors). But, this political power was in reality an economic one: control over rice land and fiscal immunity.
   The social and administrative ladder was based on one's hierarchical grade, not on merit. An inefficient and corrupt (office sales) administration undermined the central government, which was not capable to impose `law and order' even in the imperial city.
   
   Religion, superstition
   Completely opposed religious world views could continue to exist together: Shintoism (the joyful acceptance of the natural word), Buddhism (the world is a place of universal suffering) and Confucianism (the primacy of the family unit).
   But superstition (demons, spirits of the dead, astrology, dreams) had a far more important influence on daily life.
   
   Gender, love, sex, marriage
   Within the aristocracy, women could be economically independent.
   Not the nude body, but a white skin, blackened teeth and wealthy head hair were their most attractive features.
   In its polygamous system the oldest son by the principal wife was the only heir.
   Love, sex and marriage were never (or very exceptionally) combined. There existed an absolute tolerance in sexual matters (affairs).
   For women, their most engaging interest was their relation with men, who could protect them against the jealousies and the lethal infighting among the concubines. Women lived in constant fear of being abandoned by a lover, of being dismissed, of gossip and, most of all, in constant anxiety about the future of their children.
   
   Art
   Remarkably, the Heian aristocratic society produced some of the all time highlights of world literature: novels written by women.
   Music, calligraphy, dance and, cardinally poetry (`no poetry, no honey') occupied a central place in daily life.
   Murasaki Shikibu's and Sei Shonagôn's novels are a must read for all lovers of world literature.
   
   Ivan Morris distilled out of world class novels a remarkably pregnant portrait of the Japanese society and its irresponsible leisure class.
   Not only for Japanese scholars.

5 comments about Japan at War: An Oral History.

1. Pacific War experiences related by those who lived it on the Japanese side. Excellent and moving accounts of what the disastrous war was like "on the other side." Helps us see that all people are human beings, not the caricatures and stereotypes portrayed in propaganda of either side.



2. How do I describe in words the emotion this book evokes. It simply can't be done. Of all the books I have read on this era of Japanese history, this one had the most impact by far. Oral histories are valuable because they reveal the side of history you don't hear about in dry history books, they reveal the human side of tragic events in this case. Anyone interested in learning about Wartime Japan must read this book.



3. I rarely go all in for history books of this type. As an academic it is not in my nature to suspend or withhold criticism. Oral histories typically suffer from a certain blindness to strategic considerations, and end up being little more than advocacy for personal preferences held by the author, disconnected from the reality of the people, places and times of historical events under examination. That is NOT the case with Haruko Taya Cook and Peter Cook's "Japan At War: An Oral History".
   
   In the case of the Cooks' "Japan At War: An Oral History," I have no criticism or suggestion for how it could have been made better, save for my lingering wish that there was more to read of it. The interviewees' stories of personal experiences during the war are well told, well edited, well organized and well chosen. At the same time, the authors preserve an overall context in the strategic picture of what was happening at that time and why.
   
   Without hesitation, I rank it as one of my all-time favorites, and whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in history, World War II, Japan, the Far East, or human frailty, vice, cruelty and endurance.



4. This book will make you laugh out loud, angry, or simply awed by the twists of the human spirit- both good and evil. The stories are exceptional and I cannot praise the Cooks enough for creating this document! If you are a student of history, much less, a student of Japanese history, this book should be on your shelf.



5. This is an important book and will be a most rewarding reading experience for anyone who is interested in what life was like in Japan's miltitary, navy, police, and civilians during Japan's war with China from 1937 on through WWII. The underlying message is quite clear --- war is hell, to quote Kenneth Roberts (see his "Oliver Wiswell", 1940). After reading the Cook's book and Richard B. Frank's book "Downfall" I settled into the inescapable conclusion that ending the war quickly was, on international and personal scales, the kindest deed we could have done for the Japanese people (and also for the US). We can look back on it now as a period when the entire Japanese population, incuding its government, voluntarily held itself in the sway of emperor-god worship together with a belief in the omnipotence of fighting spirit. It is also clear that accused war criminals who pleaded that they had to kill innocents in obedience their superior should be allowed such a claim in their defense, whenever it could be shown that violating the order meant their own death, as was the usual case.
   
   This book has 77 narrations by 67 different contributors of oral history, each covering several pages or more. The contributions are grouped into 24 topics whose time-ordered succession ties the entire collection into a highly readable narrative. I especially appreciated the paragraphs written by the authors to give the background of the contributor and to provide some perspective on each topic. The accounts are not for the faint-of-heart --- expecially of those who worked in Unit 731, where they did medical experiments but were excused from war crimes trials.
   
   If you are looking for an example of a fighting spirit that overcomes the most formidable odds, read about the one-eyed Zero pilot Sakei Saburo. No Allied warrior that I know of came close.
   
   I just wish that the authors, who certainly found plenty, could have found a few more to tell their stories of front-line combat. But then, those soldiers were the most likely not to have survived the war.