| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.4

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society. By Pradyumna P. Karan. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2005. 416 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. $75.00, cloth; $45.00, paper.

The appearance of a text meant to introduce American undergraduate students to Japan from a geographic perspective is a most welcome event, and for this alone Pradyumna P. Karan's Japan in the 21^st Century is to be lauded. While Karan provides a sweeping account of Japan—including its history, postwar political system, and modern economy—it is the many chapters with an explicitly spatial focus that prove to be the book's greatest strength. Discussions of such subjects as Japan's natural environment and geologic structure, its regional variation, and its demographic trends provide a thorough introduction to the physical and social geography of the country. Particularly helpful is Karan's inclusion of dozens of well-produced, thematically diverse maps that collectively imbue the book with the texture of a social atlas.

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