Introducing Japan

From the metropolitan bustle of busy, modern Tokyo to the serenity of classical Kyoto, from the northern frontier land of snowy Kokkaido to distinctly colorful Kyushu and Okinaawa in the southwest, Japan is a country of striking contrasts and frequent contradictions - geisha and baseball, the Kabuki theater and oil refinaries, skyscrapers of steel and glass, landscape gardens of sand and rock. The blend of the ancient and the contemporary is unique and fascinating. Here is one volume are all the beauty and vitality of a nation whose recorded history reaches back nearly two thousand years, a nation that has progressed in little more than a century from self-imposed isolation to a place of prominence among the nations of the world. Facts - historical, geographic, cultural and economic - are wedded in a definitive combination to extraordinary pictures by some of Japan's leading photographers. Edwin O. Reischauer contributes an informative foreword and Donald Richie has written the incisive text and captions. For the general reader, for those who have visited these islands and for those who are unfamiliar with them, this is a superbly well-rounded introduction.