An Ecological View of History: Japanese Civilization in the World Context (Japanese Society Series)

This is the first English version of Tadao Umesao's classic, published first in Japanese in 1957, with a full description of his "ecological theory" of civilizations of Eurasia. Dividing the Eurasian continent into three major ecological zones consisting of Western Europe, Japan, and the region between them, he shows how the first two are basically similar and demonstrates fundamental differences between Japan and China. In 1964 a jury of ten intellectuals chose this treatise as one of the 18 most influential treatises since 1945 from among more than a hundred which were considered. In 1998, when an influential monthly, Bungei Shunju, solicited "the ten most impactful books" in the twentieth century from more than 170 intellectuals in Japan, this book won the third highest vote among 67 books that were nominated.

UMESAO Tadao was a pioneer in the fields of cultural anthropology and civilization studies in Japan. He obtained a PhD in Science from Kyoto University in 1961, and held many positions over his career, including Director General at the National Museum of Ethnology, Professor at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies and Professor at Kyoto University. He passed away in July 2010.