Simple Guide to Shinto

‘Simple Guide to Shinto’ by Ian Reader  UK: Global Books, 1998  128 pages, small size.  ISBN 1-86034-003-2

This introduction to Shinto is by a lecturer at the University of  Stirling, Scotland, who has written widely of religion in Japan.  There are eight chapters covering the definition of Shinto, kami, history, sacred space, festivals, prayer and communication, nationalism, and contemporary situation.  The book is clearly written and full of useful information, though surprisingly for an academic of Reader’s reputation there are several errors of content.  His non-Shinto knowledge is brought to bear in describing Chinese influences, particular the merging with Buddhism.  He also points out that the word ‘Shinto’ was first used in the Nihongi of 720, which he calls ‘a production of a sense of Japanese identity’.  Reader’s Shinto is culture-specific, centred on a relationship with kami ‘in the land of the gods’, and he interprets its history as a concern with ‘Japaneseness’.  This leads him to consideration of the latent nationalism he believes bound up in Shinto, and significantly one of the chapters is given over to the Yasukuni controversy.

Summary: An easily digestible book that presents Shinto as inherently Japanese rather than a universalising religion.  GreenShinto readers beware!