Author: Thomas R. H. Havens
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824860594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Japan today protects one-seventh of its land surface in parks, which are visited by well over a billion people each year. Parkscapes analyzes the origins, development, and distinctive features of these public spaces. Green zones were created by the government beginning in the late nineteenth century for state purposes but eventually evolved into sites of negotiation between bureaucrats and ordinary citizens who use them for demonstrations, riots, and shelters, as well as recreation. Thomas Havens shows how revolutionary officials in the 1870s seized private properties and converted them into public parks for educating and managing citizens in the new emperor-sanctioned state. Rebuilding Tokyo and Yokohama after the earthquake and fires of 1923 spurred the spread of urban parklands both in the capital and other cities. According to Havens, the growth of suburbs, the national mobilization of World War II, and the post-1945 American occupation helped speed the creation of more urban parks, setting the stage for vast increases in public green spaces during Japan’s golden age of affluence from the 1960s through the 1980s. Since the 1990s the Japanese public has embraced a heightened ecological consciousness and become deeply involved in the design and management of both city and natural parks—realms once monopolized by government bureaucrats. As in other prosperous countries, public-private partnerships have increasingly become the norm in operating parks for public benefit, yet the heavy hand of officialdom is still felt throughout Japan’s open lands. Based on extensive research in government documents, travel records, and accounts by frequent park visitors, Parkscapes is the first book in any language to examine the history of both urban and national parks of Japan. As an account of how Japan’s experience of spatial modernity challenges current thinking about protection and use of the nonhuman environment globally, the book will appeal widely to readers of spatial and environmental history as well as those interested in modern Japan and its many inviting green spaces.
Author: Sean Rhoads
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476631344
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
In 1954, a massive irradiated dinosaur emerged from Tokyo Bay and rained death and destruction on the Japanese capital. Since then Godzilla and other monsters, such as Mothra and Gamera, have gained cult status around the world. This book provides a new interpretation of these monsters, or kaiju-ū, and their respective movies. Analyzing Japanese history, society and film, the authors show the ways in which this monster cinema take on environmental and ecological issues—from nuclear power and industrial pollution to biodiversity and climate change.
Author: Azby Brown
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
ISBN: 1611729572
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
How the mindset of traditional Japanese society can guide our own efforts to lead a green lifestyle today. If we want to live sustainably, how should we feel about nature? About waste? About our forests and rivers? About food? Just Enough is a book of stories and sketches that give valuable insight into what it is like to live in a sustainable society by describing life in Japan some two hundred years ago, during the late Edo period, when cities and villages faced many of the same environmental challenges we do today and met them beautifully and inventively.
Author: Carin Holroyd
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487502222
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Green Japan critically examines the Japanese effort to combine economic growth with commitments to environmental sustainability.
Author: Ronald S. Green
Publisher: Association for Asian Studies
ISBN: 9780924304910
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 120
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Book Description
This book is a concise overview of Shintō through a survey of its key concepts, related archeological finds, central mythology, significant cultural sites, political dimensions, and historical developments. Its goal is to promote an understanding of Shintō as an enduring cultural phenomenon central to Japan past and present.
Author: Michael J. Green
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442228652
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
Is Japan capable of grand strategy when it comes to foreign policy? Modern Japan faces challenges on every front: from a rising China and constrained economic growth at home, to an ever-present threat posed by an increasingly unstable North Korea, to an evolving and complex relationship with the West that for so long has served as the bedrock of Japanese foreign policy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has garnered significant attention for his policies undergirding a path of “proactive pacifism” for Japan, but many questions remain unanswered with regard to what Japan’s global role ought to be, what it can be, and what that role’s development would mean for the greater stability of the region and the fate of broader geopolitical alliances across the world. While it is clear that both Japan and its allies would be best served by a clear, comprehensive, and forward-thinking Japanese foreign policy blueprint, but actually developing and implementing such a policy is understandably easier said than done. Fortunately, shaping this new strategy is a generation of Japanese foreign policy experts with eyes toward the future of Japanese power and diplomacy. In Strategic Japan: New Approaches to Foreign Policy and the U.S. Japan Alliance, five preeminent scholars: Yasuhiro Matsuda, Tetsuo Kotani, Hiroyasu Akutsu, Yoshikazu Kobayashi, and Nobuhiro Aizawa discuss Japan’s changing role in the world and the high stakes policy issues affecting Japan, Asia, and the world today. Taken together, these experts’ contributions highlight potential areas for enhanced cooperation between the United States and Japan at a time when the West desperately needs a confident and proactive Japan, and Japan needs sustained American engagement and deterrence in an Asia-Pacific region that will continue to be the site of economic growth and expansion for years to come.
Author: Toshimi A. Kayaki
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
ISBN: 161172547X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Starting with the notion that some traditions—like drinking green tea for health and mental acuity—embody timeless wisdom for living, Toshimi A. Kayaki offers dozens of wise old Japanese ways for improving how you look and feel while respecting nature and the environment. Carry your own pair of chopsticks, wear five-toe socks, eat salty plums, use rice water as floor wax, do “eco-laundry,” and always set aside 10 percent for savings . . . you get the idea. By leading a “green tea life,” you’ll help yourself and the planet. Toshimi A. Kayaki, born and raised in Japan, now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has published twenty-two books on women’s and cross-cultural issues.
Author: Robert Hellyer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231552947
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 187
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Book Description
Today, Americans are some of the world’s biggest consumers of black teas; in Japan, green tea, especially sencha, is preferred. These national partialities, Robert Hellyer reveals, are deeply entwined. Tracing the transpacific tea trade from the eighteenth century onward, Green with Milk and Sugar shows how interconnections between Japan and the United States have influenced the daily habits of people in both countries. Hellyer explores the forgotten American penchant for Japanese green tea and how it shaped Japanese tastes. In the nineteenth century, Americans favored green teas, which were imported from China until Japan developed an export industry centered on the United States. The influx of Japanese imports democratized green tea: Americans of all classes, particularly Midwesterners, made it their daily beverage—which they drank hot, often with milk and sugar. In the 1920s, socioeconomic trends and racial prejudices pushed Americans toward black teas from Ceylon and India. Facing a glut, Japanese merchants aggressively marketed sencha on their home and imperial markets, transforming it into an icon of Japanese culture. Featuring lively stories of the people involved in the tea trade—including samurai turned tea farmers and Hellyer’s own ancestors—Green with Milk and Sugar offers not only a social and commodity history of tea in the United States and Japan but also new insights into how national customs have profound if often hidden international dimensions.
Author: Pico Iyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0451493966
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
“Arguably the greatest living travel writer” (Outside magazine), Pico Iyer has called Japan home for more than three decades. But, as he is the first to admit, the country remains an enigma even to its long-term residents. In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Iyer draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to craft a playful and profound book of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture. He recounts his adventures and observations as he travels from a meditation hall to a love hotel, from West Point to Kyoto Station, and from dinner with Meryl Streep to an ill-fated call to the Apple service center in a series of provocations guaranteed to pique the interest and curiosity of those who don’t know Japan—and to remind those who do of its myriad fascinations.
Author: Deanna MacDonald
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 146291845X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Eco Living Japan presents contemporary Japanese houses which exemplify the most recent trends in sustainable design in Japan. This is wabi-sabi for the 21st century! Japan is equally as well known for its ecologically-sensitive traditional homes as it is for cutting-edge, green technology. With over 250 photos, drawings, plans and lively, informative text, this sustainable architecture book offers a picture of green living in contemporary Japan and provides inspiration and practical ideas for those creating homes in North America and other 4 season climates. Each project presents different aspects of Japan's current movement toward a more sustainable living environment as well as its focus on fine craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology. The book's content is informative and enjoyable for both professional architects and forward-thinking homeowners. Anyone with an interest in Japanese design and trends in sustainable living will find fresh ideas for their own home projects. These homes work in harmony with their environments and with the people who inhabit them— "green design" at its best!
