Ruth Benedict's study of Japanese character remains one of the most discussed books ever written about the country, and this edition lets you read it in English and Japanese side by side. The parallel-text layout means you can follow her argument in the original English while checking the Japanese rendering whenever a passage needs unpacking, so the book works equally well as cultural reading and as language study.
Benedict wrote during the Second World War, when American officials urgently needed to understand a nation whose behavior seemed to follow none of the rules the West took for granted. She could not travel to Japan, yet she assembled a portrait of a people who cultivate chrysanthemums with exquisite care and at the same time revere the sword and reserve their highest honor for the warrior. Working through concepts such as taking one's proper station, the burden of on, the repayment of obligation, and the clearing of one's name, she built a framework that Japanese readers themselves have returned to for decades.
The thirteen chapters move from the wartime research problem through the Meiji Restoration, the world of giri and human feeling, the dilemmas of virtue, self-discipline, the raising of children, and finally Japan after 1945. Across 216 pages you get both a landmark of cultural anthropology and a working vocabulary for talking about Japanese values in English.
Part of the Bilingual Books on Japan series, published by IBC Publishing. Brand new, revised new edition.
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