Nippon The Land And Its People

A truly a distinct perspective and depth into Japan that goes beyond just facts. Commissioned by the eponymous steel corporation and issued to overseas personnel to help them explain facts and comparable distinctive attributes of Japan, it does well to cover the more intelligent questions foreigners that might have about its prehistoric roots to its contribution to science and technology. I would have kept lauding the content and concise explanation but there one section that put me off about its motivation.

Nippon – the land and its people is manual of sorts that manages to briefly yet elaborately explain to foreign audiences, via Nippon steel’s salespersons, everything they would like know about Japan. As current as it was published in in 1982 and presented in a bilingual format with Japanese text on one side and English text on the other, it covers a variety of subjects on Japan such as its History, the structure of its Government and Economy, Business management, Society, Culture, and Customs. The aforementioned is eventually subdivided in a subsection that might describe the Emperor of Japan in a paragraph or into a more a Question and Answer like “is it difficult to learn Japanese?” – the reply being that it’s not any harder to learn to speak but it’s a bit vague about writing it. In general, everything the person who is curious about Japanese yet wary about reading more than an article-length entry about any particular subject.