REVIEW OF VAN GOETHEM. Review of Nagaoka: Japan’s Forgotten Capital (Brill, 2008) By Ellen Van Goethem Continuing the discussion in English begun by Ronald Toby (“Why Leave Nara?”
1985) and William Wayne Farris (Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures 1998), Ellen Van Goethem has narrated in painstaking and lucid detail the story of Kanmu Tennō’s transfer of the capital from Nara to Nagaoka and then to Heiankyō. Nagaoka: Japan’s Forgotten Capital draws on a remarkable variety of Japanese primary and secondary sources to tackle still-tantalizing questions: why the shift to Nagaoka?
REVIEW OF HERMAN OOMS. Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800 by Herman Ooms University of Hawai'i Press Book Review by Ross Bender.
REVIEW OF MICHAEL COMO. JAPAN. Premodern Japanese History and Religion Ross Bender Columbia University 1980 Auspicious Omens in the Reign of the Last Empress of Nara Japan, 749--770 Shoku Nihongi -- Tenpyo Shoho 1 Emperor, Aristocracy, and the Ritsuryo State: Court Politics in Nara.
CHANGING THE CALENDAR. JAPANESE CURRICULUM OF 757. PERFORMATIVE LOCI OF IMPERIAL EDICTS. Daily Life and Demographics in Ancient Japan.