INTRODUCTION
The following essays on Japan are united around a common question
of relevance for all anthropologists: what is a country? In attempting
to survey literature specific to different aspects involved in
answering this concern--such as history, religion, politics, social
and cultural themes, and contemporary issues--it is important
to begin with the physical characteristics of the Japanese archaepelago.
Not only have certain key geographical elements been instrumental
in combining with historical forces shaping Japanese culture and
society, they continue to exert a powerful, contemporary, and
often times unsettling influence upon the psyches of the Japanese
in ways that nothing else does.
This inner anxiety is persistent due
to the extreme volatility of Japan's membership in the Pacific
"ring of fire" grouping of slipping tectonic plates.
Hall and Beardsley (1965) mention that 52 out of 194 of Japan's
volcanoes have been active in historical time, and that the country
experiences on the average of 1500 earthquakes each year or a
tenth of the earth's seismic energy. Tokyo, devastated in 1923
by the Great Kanto earthquake, has led the world in new architectural
technology designed to withstand 8.0 tremors, and scarcely a week
goes by without some part of Japan reporting a fearsome encounter
with the geologic forces beneath.
--John Nelson, Formerly Japan Faculty, UT Austin
Physical and Cultural Geographies
Religious and Folk Geographies
Religion, History, and the State
Contemporary
Issues in Japanese Society
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