I must confess this book is thick but hey!!! It's well worth reading about for those who want to understand a little about Balinese culture as well as it's lovely people. I found it very interesting since it covered almost everything about Bali, however the book was written before World War II and well I still think it's great to have a book that is still resourceful. Even though so much has changed with Bali over the decades this book will never die surely. This is a must and is essential for those who want to have a better understanding of Bali back before World War II and they can still relate it to the present. Nothing much has changed but a few things have altered. It was like stepping back in time when I read this book... I hope everyone will enjoy the book as much as I do too... great book to have...

This book is the essential book about Bali. I read it 26 years ago when I first went to Bali and it still ranks as thee book about Bali. If you wish to learn about the Balinese people, their culture and religion and beliefs I highly recommend this book. jim

This is by far the best book available if you want to know about the people of Bali - their unique lifestyle, religion, customs and beliefs. Written in the 1930's, it still holds true today. The classic black and white photos are worth the price alone. The Balinese people still live a magical life that is difficult for a westerner to comprehend, unless you read a book like this.

Being a Rajput whose father is from the Jaipur dynasty, I was very impressed with this book. Like the latest book (please refer to "Maharaj's Jewels"), I found this book very ornate with beautiful pictures and rich historical details. The book is full of facts and intersting tidbits a reader will find facinating. Like all table top books, this one will add integrity to one's collection...

keep it up we must talk as i am a landscape photographer from india but in dubai uae we could work something together pl email me and see my books elements

Jaipur: The Last Destination which was among the six books chosen by Christie's first catalog of art books under its Islamic/Oriental/Indian Section and recommended for its "stunning images." Published by St. Martin's Press in North America and I.B.Taurus in Europe, the book also received a national award from the Indian government, and has become a landmark in Indian art book publishing by having four reprints.

I bought this book while living in Japan a few years ago and found it invaluable. Unlike many Japan guides, this one will be useful to travelers who are already very familiar with the country. The "Impoverished" title doesn't mean this is for backpackers only. Almost everyone will feel a bit impovershed in Japan, especially if they can't access the type of insider savvy offered by this book. It contains a wealth of practical information, particularly (and almost obsessively) about trains. Rickman goes into mind-boggling detail about routes, fares, passes, timetables, connections, even the history of various lines. All of which might be dull if the information weren't incredibly useful, and told with style and humor. If you're not planning to travel by rail, you should probably skip this book. But that won't apply to many people, since there's really no other sensible way to get around Japan. You also might not want to carry this book around if you plan to stick to big cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Rickman is better and more comprehensive on rural areas and small towns. The book is ideal for the overseas tourist with a Japan Rail Pass or a foreign resident looking for weekend getaways.

I think this is a very useful book because of its details. I haven't used it yet because I have not yet gone to Japan. When is the next updated edition gonna appear?

Those not at all to scale, hand-drawn maps in the Japanese Hostel Guide are not of much use to those who do not read Japanese. This guidebook translates those maps into English and make finding that hostel from the nearest train station quite easy. This alone is worth the price of this book. But on top of that, the Guide provides incredibly detailed transportation information, particularly the various rail travel passes that are available. This along with detailed itineraries for most major Japanese cities and sights, all aimed at getting the best value for the Yen. Use this Guide in companion to Lonely Planet or Moon, and enjoy your trip!

Japan Inside Out is special. The Glucks know practically everything about Japan. Japan Inside Out is comprehensive (over 1300 pages written telegram style to save space) and every page has obviously been written with tender loving care. The Glucks, who have been in Japan since 1951, truly love the country, but have been here long enough to see through the cliches and truisms that other guidebook writers fall for. Their book is truly a labour of love, and is indispensable for anyone who really wants to see more than just Kyoto and Tokyo. Japan Inside Out is the only guidebook that will help you find the Grave of Jesus Christ in Aomori, explain those funny hand positions on the Buddha statues, or tell you where you find the snake shop in Tokyo. Japan Inside Out gives you background about everything. Armed with Japan Inside Out, you won't have to wander around a temple thinking, "Gee, I bet this place might be interesting if I knew something about its history, architecture, or its religious importance." There are interesting anecdotes and stories about everywhere you might want to visit. For the budget traveller, Japan Inside Out is full of good information about cheap places to stay and eat. Although it was written in 1990, making its information about accommodation and restaurants untrustworthy, I will never travel without it again.

This book was invaluable in planning both of my trips to Japan. Wonderful reading on it's own, it is without peer in planning a trip which includes the hidden magical places that are the essence of the old and new Japan. Before and during the trips the breadth and depth of the information increased my understanding and appreciation of this fascinating culture a thousand fold. Additionally, the practical information, cultural customs, day to day "how to" suggestions, made the whole process of traveling richer and easier. I would never want to travel without it!

Jay Gluck, author of the acclaimed "Zen Combat," has here provided an almost priceless service to the potential visitor to Japan. In this massive volume, Gluck salts each page with information not usually found in a travel guide: info that can actually be used! His winsome, approachable style (and that of his wife, Sumi, and son Garet) makes "Japan Inside Out" a joy to read, and there is literally no wasted space in the book. Gluck's original illustrations add much to the book's atmosphere as well. The strongest point about "Japan Inside Out" is the intimate approach to the individual's travel goals. The Gluck family's love for and exquisitely detailed knowledge of Japan gives the book a flavor of immediacy and authenticity (along with piercing wit and humor)which is glaringly absent from more recent volumes on Asian travel. Anyone planning a trip to Japan MUST read this book. Perhaps my most powerful praise for "Japan Inside Out" is that it would entertain and edify even those who never plan to visit the Land of the Rising Sun.

Beasley does a superb job of explaining the multi-faceted nature of Japanese modernization and empire-buliding from the Meji Restoration to the Pacific War. He discusses the creation of an intellectual justification for expansion as the liberation of asian peoples from european colonialism, while exploring the changes in the Japanese elite's perceptions of its political goals, economic exploitation, and national security requirements. Neither an apology for not a treatise against this phenomenon, the author focuses on some much neglected issues while not being distracted by dwelling on Japanese "culture" as an explanation for everything.

There's more to this book than its title might suggest. In little more than 250 pages, Beasley has managed a remarkably clear overview of the development of Japan's entire external policy from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War. In the process, he pays careful attention to the internal political and economic dynamics that propelled policy, and thus lays out a great deal of the story of the development of modern Japan up through 1945. While always making his own views (and the bases for them) quite clear, he gives alternative interpretations their due. Although more recent work has extended the story in certain respects (e.g., Frederick R. Dickinson's fine War and National Reinvention), Beasley's work still stands the test of time. Remarkably, for a so brief a book treating so broad a topic, Beasley manages to organize and present his story in a way that should be easy to follow even for those who do not have much background in Japanese history. An especially good book, strongly recommended.

Beasley is really trying to say something to the academic world about imperialism but one would hardly notice it in a book which gives a careful overview of the history of Japanese imperialism in Asia. He covers most of the main issues objectively and interestingly, especially when it comes to setting up the background in which Japanese imperialsim developed.

When I ordered this book I had no Idea of what I was in for. You have to read it to understand what I mean. If you are a woodworker of any type or have an interest in Japanese Culture. You will love this book. I have never met Toshio Odate yet I have great respect for what he has done here.

I have never seen some of the variations of tools detailed in this VERY thorough catalog of tools. I have a couple of books on the subject, and this is the most detaied by far.

Illustrated with well-executed line drawings and photographs, Anyone without personal experience will be able to "pick up" the methods of traditional (non-power tool) woodworking from Japan. Those with experience will see the insight of some of the tool's design for their applications.

Odate explains how to use the tools as well- Not a "How To" book, but enough to begin to practice their use.

What I wnjoyed most was Odate's personal anecdotes of his apprenticeship- a lifestyle lost in the U.S. This is where "...their Spirit..." comes in.

Inspiring!

This book starts with the workshop description and layout. Toshio Odate uses his own unique experiences as a craftsman to show how to use and care for the tools. There are chapters on saws, chisels, marking tools, and handplanes. Japanese tools are much different than western style tools in their appearance, use, and care. All of these are covered in this excellent book.

It seems that we hear a lot about the Jewish communities in North American and Europe, but we are less familiar with the Jewish Communities of Africa, the Middle East, Caucusus, Central Asia, India and China. These are some of the oldest Jewish communities in the world so they deserve attention.

Blady has compiled a history and study of these communities. First Blady offers some general information on the country and then focuses on the Jewish community in that country. The communities Blady focuses on are Yemen, Iran, Crimea, Kurdistan, Georgia, Afghanistan, Daghestan, Uzbekistan, India, China, Morocco, LIbya, Tunisia and Ethiopia.

I have bought many, many history books from Amazon.com and this is definitely one of the best and most interesting of them all. There are Jews and there are Jews. I grew up in Malaysia (where there are no Jews) thinking that the modern-day Jewish people is a Semitic Middle Eastern looking people since they all originated from Israel.

Then I thought that Jews were in fact all whites after finding out that many white American celebrities were Jewish. Later on, I discovered that there were actually two Jewish "peoples" : the Eastern European variety (i.e. Ashkenazim) and the Spanish/Mediteranean looking variety (i.e. Sephardim).

But after buying and reading this book, I now know that there is no such thing as a Jewish race (in the anthropological sense of the word). The concept of a "Jewish race" as perpetuated by Hitler and other anti-semities had truly fooled people like myself and others who grew up knowing little about Jews.

As Jews became dispersed by persecution and massacres they brought along Judaism with them to almost every corner of the known world. Not all went to Europe to become the ancestors of the Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Many settled in North Africa, the Middle East and Persia, Africa (i.e. Ethiopia)...and even travelled as far as India and China. In all these places, these Jews accepted proselytes/converts and married local women, who added their genetic material (and customs) into those isolated Jewish communities ......so much so that these Chinese, Indian, Ethiopian, Persian, Afghan, Kurdish, Tat, Yemeni, Beber, Bukharan and Georgian Jews become physically indistinguishable from their Gentile neighbours and had very similar customs. In all these places, as the Gentiles became converts to Judaism, they and their descendants became an integral part of the Jewish people. Similaly, the authors inform that a great many Jews in North Africa, Persia, Afghanistan, Kurdistan and Yemen after the Islamic conquests converted to Islam (sometimes by force). No doubt they become absorbed by and contributed their genes to the aforesaid Muslim communities/peoples.

Also, I thought that were only two Jewish kingdoms in history (i.e. Israel and Judah from the Bible). In fact, when Judaism spread with the Jewish dispersion, a number of peoples and kingdoms embraced Judaism. Jewish kingoms in fact existed at one point in time from Berber North Africa in the West to Kurdistan and Western India in the East; and from Khazaria (modern day Russia/Ukraine) in the North to Yemen and Ethiopia in the South. Most of these kingdoms were small except for the Khazar Empire.

The authors definitely deserve more than 5 stars for their research and the compilation of these facts into this truly intriguing book.

This is an excellent book on the 17 "Oriental" Jewish communities in Asia and Africa, namely those of Kurdistan, Crimea, Georgia, Daghestan, Bukhara, Afghanistan, China, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Ethiopia as well as the two communities each in India, Yemen and Persia. As this book is confined only to exotic communities, the larger 'mainstream' and better-known Jewish communities such as the Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Greek-speaking Romaniotes and even the Mizrachim are outside the purview of this book. The terms 'Sephardim' and 'Mizrachim' in this book are used in a technical sense and as such refer only to the Ladino-speaking Jews of Spanish origin and the Arabic speaking Jews of Iraq and Egypt respectively.

The author describes in great detail the physical appearance, customs, religious practices, social status, common occupations of the members of each Jewish community as well as the relationship with and the treatment by their gentile neighbours. The Jews of these exotic communities are very similar in physical appearance, cuisine, lifestyle, customs, and even in language (which is normally a variant of the local language mixed with Hebrew words) with the indigenous peoples who they live among, which challenges the concept of Jews as a race. For example, the Jews of Kaifeng, Malabaris and Beta Israel are physically indistinguishable from the Chinese, Indians and Ethiopians respectively. Even the Krimchaks of Crimea are Caucasians with Mongoloid features not unlike their Crimean Tatar neighbours. This shows that intermarriages between Jews and the locals as well as conversions to Judaism must have been substantial at one point.

Eleven of the Seventeen Jewish communities live in a Muslim milieu. Unlike most books written by Western apologists of Islam, this book describes the persecution and decimation of the Jews by their Muslim rulers/conquerors. On the eve of the Muslim conquests, the Jews must have formed a very substantial part of the population in North Africa and West Asia. In Persia for example, they once numbered in the millions. Jewish Berber tribes such as the Jerava Berbers under El Kahina in Morrocco and the Ureshfani under Fanana in Libya played a prominent role in fighting the Muslim invaders. After the conquests, thousands of Jews were killed and even more escaped annihilation by embracing Islam. This book briefly mentions that many of the ancestors of the Muslim Pathans (the main ethnic element of the Taliban), Tats, Kurds (who played a prominent role in the 1895 and 1915 Turkish-orchestrated Armenian massacres), Yemenis (Osama bin Laden and a fair few of the Al-Qaeda members are of Yemeni origin) and the various Berber groups in North Africa (many of them are now supporters of Islamic fundamentalist movements) were of the Jewish faith.

The Jewish remnants who remained in the Islamic lands during the medieval period were subjected to all kinds of indignities, abuses and not to mention institutionalized contempt. Many a times they were on the brink of extinction. Under Islam, Jews were made to do the most humiliating and repugnant tasks in society. A Jew was not allowed to defend himself when attacked by Muslims and almost all Muslims who murdered Jews went unpunished. The Jew was never out in the street with his wife because he could not intervene on her behalf if she was assaulted. During times of religious violence, everything a Jew owns is snatched from him, his children taken away and he himself would be killed or auctioned off. Sometimes, the Jews were lucky. They were given the choice of converting to Islam and many did while secretly practicing Judaism. The numbers of forced converts to Islam must have been considerable, as there were at least 20,000 Meshedi New Muslims [cum]Crypto-Jews (whose ancestors "converted" generations ago) of Iran who openly returned to the Jewish faith in more recent years after fleeing Iran.

Islamic history is revisionist and subjected to propaganda. On one hand Islam institutionalizes the discrimination of Christians and Jews for rejecting Muhamad as a prophet of God but on the other hand claimed that they were never persecuted. It is like the anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who say "did 6 million Jews really died" whilst working towards the destruction of the Jewish people. I hope that there would be more such books which give a fair and objective account of the history of the Jews living under Islam. More often than not, Western writers while emphasizing the expulsion of the Sephardim from Spain and the massacres perpetrated by the Crusaders in medieval Germany and the Cossacks in Ukraine, give a distorted account of how Jews lived happily under Islam. What is intentionally concealed is the fact that the religion in which the great Spanish-Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, was compelled to convert to was Islam and not Christianity and that Sabbetai Zevi (the "Jewish Messiah"), a Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire was forced to accept Islam on the pain of death and commissioned to evangelize the Jews for Islam.

This book is a must buy for all those who are interested not only in the history of the Jewish diaspora but also if they are interested in exotic cultures in hidden corners of the world.

Set in 4th century Japan, Jingu: The Hidden Princess by Ralph Pray is the story of Jingu, a young princess who feels isolated and alone within the Imperial Japanese Palace. On her tenth birthday, Jingu receives a gift from the Emperor with a mysterious hidden message, and so her journey and transformation from girl to leader begins. Firmly grounded in history, written with majesty, grace, warmth, and understanding, and enhanced with illustrations by Xiaojun Li, Jingu: The Hidden Princess is an emotional and highly enjoyable coming of age book especially recommended for preteen young adult readers.

"Jingu" is a delightful little story for children.We follow this beautiful, young princess of fourth-century Japan who is being groomed by her parents of the Imperial family, and even by the elderly Emperor himself to be a wise and special leader. Although Jingu feels she is overprotected, she is finally given to understand that the reason for keeping her life so protected was to nurture her innate gifts for absorbing the tenents of wisdom and leadership while safeguarding her from being negatively influenced by the extraneous forces of mediocrity.
As Jingu ages from little girl into a vivacious young lady, very learned from diligently studying with her old Chinese master teacher, she finally becomes aware that "my world is opening-up". And indeed, it does open-up. Jingu is informed that, thanks to her brilliant progress in her studies, she has been appointed to a high office in the Ministry of Education in a Japan that is still feudal. Eventually, she is told by the by now very elderly Emperor that when he dies she is to become the wife of his successor. In other words, the new Empress.
Yet, this is not merely the tale of a hereditarily successful marriage. Long before she becomes Empress, the youthfully wise Jingu tells her young male friend, Ichiro, that she has great plans for Japan whose one-hundred clans have been feuding for many years. She idealistically decides that once she becomes Empress she will convince all these warring clans with her "fresh vision" for the future by helping them to stop their perennial fighting and to unify them into what was to become the Empire of Japan.
Ralph Pray, the book's author (amazingly, this is his first book), writes his fascinating tale with poetically nuanced and precise language. I can't wait for his next book.

"Jingu the Hidden Princess" is a gentle, intelligent tale of the maturing of a young princess in fourth century century Japan. Historically based, it is told in first person without sentimentality. The result is a thoroughly believable journey into a past that most twentieth century children, until now, have had little opportunity to explore.

In one sense, Jingu is a children's coming of age story set in another time and another culture. In another sense it is a statement of the indomitable spirit of children, in this case one particular little girl. And in still another sense it is a pattern for integrity as Jingu makes faithful decisions for the sake of duty to country and heritage. None of these "morals" is militant or in-your-face. They are just quietly there.

Dr. Pray has written an appealing book that children will be fascinated by and parents will be glad to have on their children's shelves.

The illustrations, by Xiaojun Li, are graceful pen and ink drawings that enhance not only the look of the book, but the meaning of the text.

"This audacious book, a centennial stock-taking on an independence that never was, constructed as a journey to a goal yet to be realized, is in all of its parts, an interrogation of the colonial condition. In spite of profoundly divergent viewpoints, it strikes a resounding echo: Tama na!" - from Roger Bresnahan's book review of Journey of 100 Years, which appeared in Amerasia Journal.

This is an important book which collects essays by some of the great Filipino and Filipino American minds. This great resource is a very useful educational tool. I highly recommend it to all educators and students of Filipino and Filipino American studies.

The editors, Brainard and Litton, have assembled a unique and important volume of personal and historical reflections on the Filipino experience. This interdisciplinary collection brings together views from the Philippiines and the voices of Filipinos in the U.S. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the post-colonial experience. I highly recommend it!

I was a marine at Khe Sanh for the entire siege.The Book is a good accounting of the horror of the siege. I was with the 1st battalion ninth marines at rock quarry at Khe Sanh. It provides a view of what happened to those who endured the siege and for these give their all at Khe Sanh. Semper Fi

THIS BOOK IS SO TOUCHING IT SHOULD BE ON THE MARINE CORPS READING LIST IF YOU ARE OR WERE IN THE MARINE CORPS IT IS A MUST YOU READ THIS BOOK

I have read many books about military history and about the war in Vietnam in particular. This is by far one of the most emotionally wrought and amazing books I have ever read. The tales from the marines own words are amazing. You are given a great insight into the amazing odds they were fighting, and their undaunted spirit and determination to survive and win.