ANCIENT JAPAN: And Its Influence in the Modern World

This textlike overview traces the major periods in Japanese history preceding the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 and considers various waves of foreign influence and their assimilation by a process he summarizes as ""adopt, adapt, adept."" Walker strives for balance, surveying the harsh life of the peasantry and clarifying the differences between Japanese and European feudalism as well as discussing developments in art, poetry and religion. The treatment of Buddhism is perhaps as good as can be expected at this level, but the shortcomings of the academic approach are indicated by the fact that we are given, for example, a technical definition of the tanka poetic form, but only one actual tanka. Limited, but possibly useful.