Publications of Note

Books and Boats: Sino-Japanese Relations in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By Ōba Osamu; translated by Joshua A. Fogel. Merwin-Asia, Portland, Maine, 2012. xi, 324 pages. $65.00, cloth; $35.00, paper. A translation of Edo jidai no Nitchū hiwa (Tōhō Shoten, 1980), this volume is the first work by Ōba to appear in English. Ōba demonstrates that private parties in China and Japan maximized contact with the other side during a period of severe official restrictions on interaction with the outside world. “Japanese consumers craved any and all things Chinese—books, plants, foodstuffs, medicines, lacquer and other art ware, even elephants” (p. x). The book particularly focuses on censorship and the book trade.

Demographic Change and Inequality in Japan. Edited by Sawako Shirahase. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2011. xiii, 239 pages. $34.95, paper. Originally published in 2006 as Henka suru shakai no fubyōdō (University of Tokyo Press), the seven essays in this collection examine inequalities hidden in Japanese society’s low birthrate and aging population. Topics include inequality consciousness, implications for households, youth, educational inequalities, health, children, and social security. Contributors are Toshiki Satō, Sawako Shirahase, Yūji Genda, Takehiko Kariya, Hiroshi Ishida, Katsumi Matsuura, and Naomi Miyazato.

Social Exclusion: Perspectives from France and Japan. Edited by Marc Humbert and Yoshimichi Sato. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2012. xiv, 162 pages. $34.95. The essays in this volume aim “to document and contrast” disillusion and social exclusion in France and Japan (p. x). The essays consider equality, social stratification, exclusion, labor markets, homelessness and civil society, social movements, employment policies, and social rights. Contributors are Pierre Concialdi, François-Xavier Devetter, François Dubet, Xavier Emmanuelli, Yūji Genda, Isabelle Giraudou, Yuki Honda, Marc Humbert, Nanako Inaba, David-Antoine Malinas, Serge Paugam, and Yoshimichi Sato.