Japan Encyclopedia (Harvard University Press Reference Library)

Rating:
Summary: An embarrassment for Harvard University Press
Review: I purchased this book to use as a reference, to confirm various facts about Japanese life, culture, religion, etc. Unfortunately, it is so riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies that it is essentially useless. What's the point of a reference work that can't be trusted?

Compounding the problem is the book's sloppy production and editing. Cross references lead to entries that don't exist, or that have been retitled (Ex.: Under "Trade" entry, there's an x-ref "see Dejima," but there's no "Dejima" entry; it's been retitled "Deshima" and re-alphabetized), or that circle you back to the original entry (Ex.: "Cherry tree" has an x-ref to "Sakura." Flip to the entry for "Sakura" and you find "See Cherry tree.") These are by no means isolated cases.

The volume's use of macrons (the Japanese diacritical indicating a long vowel) is inconsistent. Since the presence or absence of a macron can completely change the meaning of a word, this is a huge problem. The inconsistencies in spelling are so widespread that one gets the feeling that no one involved in this book knew a whit about the Japanese language.

It's sad that a publisher like Harvard's Belknap Press would release a volume that obviously needed about another year's worth of fact checking and a hell of rigorous proofread.

A one-volume English-language encyclopedia of Japan would be a great thing. We'll just have to keep waiting for one.

Rating:
Summary: Quantity over quality
Review: Noble though the stated goals of this work are, they are defeated by one simple fact: the poor quality of many of the entries in this encyclopedia.

One, somewhat detailed example is the entry for Reizei Tamesuke. It calls him a member of the Reizei school of poetry, which is true. The entry then goes on to say that the school was founded by his father, Tameie, which is false. It also says that Tamesuke was opposed to the Kyogoku and Nijo schools of thought on poetry, which is also not quite true. This also drops any and all information about his mother, Abutsu, from whom were born two of the treasures of classical Japanese literature: the Izayoi and Utatane diaries. Naturally, there is no mention here of the fact that Abutsu had to fight with Tameie, even after Tameie's death, to win the plot of land the Reizei family would take its name from later.

Although this is one example, it fairly quickly shows the problems that can be seen throughout this book. There are, it is safe to say, more entries compared to any similar reference, but volume does not make up for quality in this instance. Some of the problems may be a result of the translation into English, but if so that simply means this version is not all that great.

Another thing surprising for a reference produced by an establishment such as Harvard is the complete absense of references listed at the end of entries. Everything is as-is, and the only way to determine where information may have been derived from is to look it up in the long list of catagorized books in the back.

Given that the Kodansha Bilingual Encyclopedia of Japan is far beyond what most would even consider paying for a simple reference, it may be worth looking at the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan, or another, larger reference.