Book description
Why read it?
1 author picked The Chrysanthemum and the Bat as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book, Whiting’s first, appeared around 1976/7 and went through several editions. The title was a subtle parody of anthropologist Ruth Benedict’s 1946 classic, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese culture. I read it around the time I was writing my first book, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese comics, and it was a great inspiration. It did with baseball what I was trying to do with Japanese comics—show how Japanese were interpreting something with which North Americans were very familiar (baseball and comics) in very different ways.
In my case, manga provided an entertaining, non-didactic way…
From Frederik's list on The best books that have inspired me to write about Japan.
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