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THE KODANSHA BILINGUAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAPAN
Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1998
942 pages. 9,400
This bilingual encyclopedia is the latest in a series of reference works by Kodansha and Kodansha International that began with the ninevolume Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (1983), a costly 10-year project. A decade later, Kodansha published a condensed and updated version, the 1,924-page Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, followed in 1995 by the 520-page Japan: Profile of a Nation.
Whereas the contents of the 1983 and 1993 encyclopedias are presented alphabetically, the organization of the Bilingual Encyclopedia, like that of Japan: Profile of a Nation, follows a topical approach The material is divided into seven sections: geography and nature; history; government and diplomacy; economy; society; culture; and life (daily life, leisure and sports). The English text is on the left side of the page; the Japanese translation on the right.
The appendix offers bilingual texts of the postwar Constitution of Japan, various treaties and international accords, the Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation and a Chronology of Japanese History. It also includes a list in Japanese and Latin of endangered flora and fauna in Japan.
The foreword notes that today's increasingly borderless world heightens, rather than lessens, the need for nations to be able to explain their history and culture so as...