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CHOICE Review

Jomon pottery is a physical testimonial to the earliest cultural history of Japan, dating from as early as 10,000 BCE to 300 BCE. This slender--and staggeringly priced--volume, the first solely devoted to the subject since J. Edward Kidder's Prehistoric Japanese Arts: Jomon Pottery (1968), identifies six sequential phases, and each is considered relative to a variety of factors. These include the location and nature of sites in Japan; their dating; relationships to neighboring countries; techniques; internal regional characteristics identified by types, shapes, styles, and decorative patterns. All of this is supported by 16 good color and 163 small but adequate monochrome illustrations of the objects, maps, and a modest bibliography. Although this is the effort of an enthusiastic amateur (in the good sense of the word), it provides a convincing order to the often diverse objects; and the often spectacularly imaginative works and the supporting commentary open a window on the earliest instances of the Japanese artistic imagination that was to flourish in later centuries. For this reason alone it should be placed on any library's shelves that otherwise contain such material--if the price can be justified. Undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. J. O. Caswell; University of British Columbia