‘Shinto in History: Ways of the kami’ ed. by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen  US: Univ of Hawaii, 2000                   368 pages, medium size.  ISBN 0-8248-2363-X

This is a weighty collection of academic essays aimed at showing that there is no such thing as one orthodox Shinto, but that historically there have been and continue to be several forms.  In other words, as the subtitle suggests, there is not one ‘way of the kami’ but a plurality of ways.  In pursuing the thesis, the book challenges conventional notions such as that of continuity since ancient times, and indeed that the religion is indigenous and unique to Japan.   The writing is academic throughout, and though the book proceeds chronologically, many of the articles cover pet hobby-horses rather than being central to the theme or the historical development.  The content is sometimes recondite and difficult reading, aimed presumably at those working in Shinto studies and Japanese history.  On the other hand,it gives assurance that the information is authoritative and some of the chapters are well worth the reading: there is an unusually lucid account of Yoshida Shinto, for example.  The book has sixteen chapters in all, beginning with Shinto and Taoism in early Japan and ending with State Shinto.  Unlike other books, it suggests that while the structure of post-Meiji Shinto has been dismantled, the ideology most definitely has not.

Summary: Likely to appeal most to the scholarly minded and those with a historical interest. Others would likely enjoy Breen and Teeuwen’s more accessible A New History of Shinto.

Contents:

Chapter One  Shinto past and present

Chapter Two  Shinto and Taoism in early Japan

Chapter Three   Shinto and the natural environment

Chapter Four  The state cult of the Nara and Heian periods

Chapter Five  The economics of ritual power

Chapter Six  The kami in esoteric Buddhist thought and practice

Chapter Seven  Reading the Yuitsu Shinto myobo yoshu

Chapter Eight   The death of a shogun: deification in early modern Japan

Chapter Nine  Changing images of Shinto: Sanja takusen or the three oracles

Chapter Ten  Mapping the Sacred Body: Shinto versus popular beliefs at Mt Iwaki in Tsugaru

Chapter Eleven  Nativism as a social movement: Katagiri Harukazu and the Hongaku reisha

Chapter Twelve  Ideologues, bureaucrats and priests: on ‘Shinto’ and ‘Buddhism’ in early Meiji Japan

Chapter Thirteen  Shinto as a ‘non-religion’

Chapter Fourteen  The structure of state Shinto

Chapter Fifteen  The disfiguring of nativism: Hirata Atsutane and Orikiuchi Shinbou

Chapter Sixteen  Tanaka Yoshito and the beginnings of Shintogaku