The heart of this short volume is of course the ancient ritual prayers used in Japan in ancient times, more specifically translations of them. This in itself is a rare feature and should get the attention it deserves as we tend to overlook such core features especially when dealing with Easter (non-Western) rituals.

Another valuable part of this book is the preface, which itself is reason enough to buy the book. It is a clear attack on an all too overlooked problem: that Western scholarship and its methods, despite its own hubris, lacks in the capabilities it needs to have in order to deal with non-Western subject matter: from Euro-centracism to Chirstian enspired thought of the place of man and God in the universe and their roles therein. This should serve as a good wake-up call to many in the scholarly community.

This volume gives us an interesting ethnography of an impoverished slum in Cotabato City called Campo Muslim. The author protracts his study of the slum to encompass anthropological contributions to understanding Gramscian hegemony, nationalism, colonial histories, formation of new, post-traditional elites, and subaltern resistance. Most useful in this book is the account of the construction of Muslim national identity and the account of the elections in the late 80s wherein the Muslim and Islamist participants made an unexpectedly poor showing giving most of the victories to Christian candidates. Parts of the book are uneven; however, the account is consistent to his methodology from the outside and he allows the information to lead him--always be circumspect that ideology or presuppositions don't lead his interpretations by the nose at least in matters of peasant politics. In other words, the peasant remains an autonomous political actor that doesn't merely parrot and conform to the requests of the socially more advantaged.

The most glaring flaw in the book was what I personally found to be an over-identification with Muslim Filippinos over and against Christian Filippinos. Armed separatist movements are portrayed sympathetically, whereas 'Christian' efforts, whether in terms of national integration, militant attemtps to stop succession, and even charity are treated as all being pernicious acts directed against Muslims. One example was the characterization of Mother Theresa's charity for children in the city as being 'perverse' without any such acerbic criticisms for the vicious effects of separatism movement and the deaths it caused given. The same goes for foreign actors. In the work, American actions in the Philippines are sinister and undermine Philippine Muslim identity; whereas, Libyan, Saudi Arabian, and Egyptian interference are merely catalysts for social change.

I'd been flying to and from Cotabato City, the site of Mckenna's research, almost every month for last few months. I'm a Catholic, but the fact is, if you are on business in Cotabato City, you talk to and deal with Muslims. The Muslims I met, Maguindanaons for the most part, were personable and likeable. They're nothing like the vagabond bad guys I heard about from my elders in the 70s, my growing up years and the years of the war in Mindanao.

I also have Catholic relatives who've been there since the 1930s. In one of the early chapters of his book, McKenna wrote that many Christians in Cotabato City knew next to nothing about how Muslims really live and what Muslims really are because they choose not to know.

I believe he's correct since what my Christian cousins and friends say, which is sometimes patronizing and not at all complimentary, do not seem to mesh with what I know of the Muslims I've met in the course of work. In my conversations with my Muslim associates, they eagerly welcome inquiries about what Islam is all about but they are not about to insist that you convert to Islam.

But then again, my cousins and friends been living there for years on end so they should know what they're talking about, right? These days, Cotabato City is a city unlike any I've been to in the Philippines, even among the bigger cities in Mindanao. There is an almost equal number of Christians and Muslims and the physical features of the city reflect this.

I have yet to test this theory, but I think McKenna's book might prove provocative to Muslims who espouse separatism or federalism (as a "softer" form of separatism). McKenna traces the beginnings of a separate Muslim identity to gentle tending by American educators of young Muslim minds who went on to become national leaders and local datus.

I'll be sending a copy of the book to a conservative Muslim Maguindanaon who had some harsh words to say about the 1898 Treaty of Paris and the Americans who governed Mindanao thereafter. It would be interesting to find out what he thinks after reading Mckenna, who wrote mostly of his people, the Maguindanaons.

On another level, I believe this book should be required reading for all Filipinos. Our required history courses concentrate too much on Philippine history in Luzon and the Visayas. We Christian Filipinos hardly know anything about Mindanao except that our national hero, Jose Rizal, was exiled in Dapitan in Zamboanga. (Now, what we know is that Basilan, also in Western Mindanao is the site of the Balikatan activities of American and Filipino soldiers against the Abu Sayyaf, and that Zamboanga is the city center for the Americans.)

The reasons for the rebellion of Christian Filipinos against Spanish and American rule are analyzed to death in our history books and even given symbolic parallels to the Passion of Christ. But no narration even of the Mindanao rebellion against colonial rule is part of our required reading in Philippine history.

During one visit to Cotabato City, an old Maguindanaoan lady proudly told me, a Filipina Catholic from Luzon with a Spanish name and an American education, that her people had never been colonized unlike my forebears. I had nothing to say. But I would be honored if she considered me her countrywoman in spite of everything.

Just the other night, I watched a documentary feature of a battle fought to the death by Maranaos, another Muslim group, against the Americans in 1902 in the town of Bayang in Lanao del Sur. After the battle, only five Maranao men were left alive. Even women and children were killed, their bodies dumped in the trenches. Around 10 American soldiers were killed. American sources tell the story that towards the end of the battle, a white flag was flown outside the fort in Bayang. Thus, they say, the Maranaos surrendered. Actually, among Muslims, a white flag is flown to indicate a death.

Dr. McKenna has obviously spent a great deal of time and study in the southern Philippines. His insights are thought-provoking. I highly recommend this book.

Very good overview.. wish they would have spent more time on mid-century modern leaders like Edward Wormley of Dunbar fame.

Those in the know -- seek out Wormley for a clear viewpoint on the essence of modern design.

Turn up the stereo and pass me a martini...

Read through this book, let me know how great is the designer is. In fact, i'm not so familar to the chair. i started to learn how to appreciate those design.

This book has pictures of 1000 different kinds of chairs and is a great resource. It has adequate information about Eames chairs which have become known worldwide. It has many other kinds of chairs including some very exotic chairs.

The Kojiki is one of the most important works of both Japanese literature and history being that it is both the earliest surviving text composed in Japan on Japanese subjects and also that the stories contained their in formed a large part of the base of the Japanese self image for years to come.

I'll start with the problems with this particular text before getting in to the good parts.

The names and places which were not reformed into an english translation (in other words transliterations of the original Japanese) are done in a way that is meant to reflect how the words were likely to have been pronounced at the time. This in itself is not a problem in terms of scholarship, but it does not help when people are trying to read the text and perhaps communicate with Japanese scholars and students. Also, when comparing the Nihonshoki (sometimes Nihongi) in translation a person may need to hunt to find which names are identical. The modern pronounciation is provided in the glossary, which perhaps is enough, but most likely a person will remember what was in the text, not a footnote. There is also a problem with sacrificing communication for a try at scholarly theory (ancient pronounciation of Japanese was then and is now still in the theoretical stages as we have no actual transliterations of Japanese from back then) when just footnotes would do.

The second problem is the lack of a few basic points of information. For example, even though "historically" having a geneology of the gods as well as men may not have so much meaning, it can help people looking at the book as literature may have found meaning there. This is a fairly standard addition to Japanese works on the text of the same scale as this, bringing in to question why it was left out.

If you made it this far you now get to hear that, in fact, this is a rather good text in terms of both reading and study. Although it is set up in a pseudo epic-poem/biblical style (line numbers, chapters, etc., obviously absent from the original), this does not reduce the readability and having reference numbers will help people overseas work with the text more easily. There are a large number of footnotes to help those looking for more information, and the appendices are loaded full of reference material to get a person started on specialized research (it should be noted that in recent years, particularly with the huge amount of archelogical and historical discoveries, the study of Japanese myth and legend has been virtually reborn since the writing of this book; see Prehistoric Japan : New Perspective on Insular East Asia by Keiji Imamura for more information). The introduction as well offers a good summarization of scholarly thinking on the Kojiki (and in part Nihonshoki) from ancient times to when the book was written.

All in all, for those who cannot yet read the original this will be one volume to have handy if you are looking to start studying Japanese literature, history, or culture.