Poet and scholar Sadakazu Fujii reconsiders the origins of Japanese uta across myth, norito, the Man'yoshu, The Tale of Genji, Ainu and Ryukyuan songs, Chinese poetry, haiku, and modern tanka. The book crosses literary history and poetics to approach the roots of song.

A journey from the classics to modern tanka in search of the sources of uta.

This work of social history and sociology of education examines how postwar Japan understood its lag behind modernity and what self-image it lost after catching up. Through educational policy and public discourse, it considers a society without a clear modern model to follow.

An analysis of postwar Japan's self-image after the goal of catching up disappeared.

From the perspective of river engineering, this book reconsiders floods not only as hazards to be controlled but as questions of nature, society, and place. Looking back at traditional relationships with rivers, it argues for flood control based on coexistence, including levees that do not easily fail even when overtopped.

A reconsideration of flood damage through a changed view of nature and coexistence with rivers.

A thirty-volume Japanese literature anthology personally edited by Natsuki Ikezawa. Through new translations and fresh editorial choices, it presents Japanese literature from the classics to the modern period not as a fixed canon but as a living current open to today's readers.

Natsuki Ikezawa's thirty-volume reweaving of Japanese literature for contemporary readers.

A historical overview that traces Western music from medieval church music to twentieth-century modernism, following not only composers and works but also changes in musical ideas and performance practice. True to the Iwanami Junior Shinsho style, it keeps an accessible tone while still offering a broad view of the classical tradition.

From songs of prayer to the avant-garde, a single volume that surveys the flow of Western music.

An introductory history of Japanese music that traces the story from Jomon bells and stone flutes through Buddhist music, gagaku, noh, kabuki, bunraku, the arrival of Western music, and modern Japanese music.

A single volume that looks across Japanese music from humble bells and stone flutes to modern traditions.