Review by Choice Review
Mock states that "the primary purpose of this book is to provide an ethnographic account of a part of Japan not previously treated ... [and that] the back of Japan [the Sea of Japan side] has been under represented in the literature, and this is a contribution toward the correction of that imbalance." He is mistaken. Sapporo is not one of the communities along the Sea of Japan, and it is hardly a place to do such an ethnographic study. The city was newly settled after the Meiji Restoration, and its population came from different parts of Japan. Except for the Ainu villages, neighborhoods such as the one he studied have neither tradition nor a local dialect. Thus Mock chose the wrong community and wrong methodology for his stated purpose. His lack of knowledge of Japan and the Japanese language perhaps led him to an erroneous assumption that he could treat a neighborhood in Japan like any preliterate society. His methodology, however, is inappropriate for analysis of a community in a highly industrialized and highly literate society. The value of this contribution to the broader academic community is questionable. M. Y. Rynn; University of Scranton
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
