Offers an intriguing and often humorous look at the differences and similarities between the national obsession over baseball in Japan and in the United States and a detailed account of the game of "besoboru."

You Gotta Have Wa: When Two Cultures Collide on the Baseball Diamond

Sports & Outdoors

Whiting, Robert

Miscellaneous

Macmillan

A hilarious, informative, and riveting account of Japanese baseball and the cultural clashes that ensued when Americans began playing there professionally. In Japan, baseball is a way of life. It is a philosophy. It is besuboru. Its most important element is wa—group harmony—embodied in the proverb "The nail that sticks up shall be hammered down." In this witty and incisive book, Robert Whiting gives us a close-up look at besuboru's teams, obsessive ritualism, and history, as seen through the eyes of American players who found the Japanese approach—rigorous pregame practices, the tolerance for tie games, injured pitchers encouraged to “pitch through the pain”—completely baffling. With vivid accounts of East meeting West, involving Babe Ruth, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, Japanese home run king Sadaharu Oh, and many others, this lively and completely unique book is an utter gem and baseball classic.

You Gotta Have Wa

Reference

Vintage

This major new study re-examines one of the most controversial issues in early modern history: the impact of the English Reformation upon the English people. It represents an advance from the conventional reign-by-reign narrative to a more incisively thematic approach. Drawing on the author's own research in church arts as well as in written records, like wills and parish accounts, and evaluating the findings of other recent historian, it forcefully challenges several of the currently fashionable interpretations of this crucial era.

Local Responses to the English Reformation

History

Europe

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

This major new study re-examines one of the most controversial issues of early modern history: the impact of the English Reformation upon the English people. It represents an advance from the conventional reign-by-reign narrative to a more incisively thematic approach. Drawing on the author's own research in church art as well as in written records such as wills and parish accounts, and evaluating the findings of other recent historians, it forcefully challenges several of the currently fashionable interpretations of this crucial era.

Red Globe Press

"A fascinating look at some fascinating people who show how democracy advances hand in hand with crime in Japan."--Mario Puzo In this unorthodox chronicle of the rise of Japan, Inc., Robert Whiting, author of You Gotta Have Wa, gives us a fresh perspective on the economic miracle and near disaster that is modern Japan. Through the eyes of Nick Zappetti, a former GI, former black marketer, failed professional wrestler, bungling diamond thief who turned himself into "the Mafia boss of Tokyo and the king of Rappongi," we meet the players and the losers in the high-stakes game of postwar finance, politics, and criminal corruption in which he thrived. Here's the story of the Imperial Hotel diamond robbers, who attempted (and may have accomplished) the biggest heist in Tokyo's history. Here is Rikidozan, the professional wrestler who almost single-handedly revived Japanese pride, but whose own ethnicity had to be kept secret. And here is the story of the intimate relationships shared by Japan's ruling party, its financial combines, its ruthless criminal gangs, the CIA, American Big Business, and perhaps at least one presidential relative. Here is the underside of postwar Japan, which is only now coming to light.

Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Explains the importance of baseball in the national life of modern Japan and the ways in which the Japanese have brought some of the traditions of Bushido and Kabuki to this American-born game

Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style

Avon/Books

Matsui... Nomo... Sasaki... Ichiro... the so-called American "National Pastime" has developed a decidedly Japanese flair. Indeed, in this year's All-Star game, two of the starting American League outfielders were from Japan. And for the third straight year, Ichiro - the fleet-footed Seattle Mariner - received more votes for the All-Star game than any other player in the game today. Some 15 years ago, in the bestseller "You Gotta Have Wa," Robert Whiting examined how former American major league ballplayers tried to cope with a different culture while playing pro ball in Japan. Now, Whiting reverses his field and reveals how select Japanese stars have come across the Pacific to play in the big leagues. Not only have they had to deal with the American way of life, but they have individually changed the game in dramatic fashion.

The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime

World

Grand Central Publishing

Ichiro...Nomo...Hasegawa...Hideki Matsui...one by one they have come to America and made their mark as incredibly gifted and popular ballplayers. But this new wave of athlete-led by the sensational Ichiro Suzuki, whom many refer to as the best all-around player-is just the tip of a fascinating iceberg. Illuminating a deep and very different tradition of baseball, Whiting shows why more Japanese players will be coming to America...and how they will forever transform the way our game is played. Grandly entertaining and deeply revealing, The Samurai Way of Baseball is a classic book about sports, business, and stardom-in a world that is changing before our eyes.

The Samurai Way of Baseball

The religious revolution known as the 'Reformation' must rank among the most crucial and transforming events in English history. Yet its original reception by the English people remains largely obscure. Did they welcome the innovations - or did they resist? By what internal motivations were their responses determined? And by what external influences were their attitudes shaped? These are the key issues explored by Robert Whiting in this major investigation, based primarily on original research in the south-west. Dr Whiting's controversial conclusion is that for most of the population the Reformation was less a conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism than a transition from religious commitment to religious passivity or even indifference.

The Blind Devotion of the People: Popular Religion and the English Reformation (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)

Religion & Spirituality

Cambridge University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Whiting, Robert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Whiting, Robert

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Whiting, Robert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

You Gotta Have Wa: When Two Cultures Collide on the Baseball Diamond

You Gotta Have Wa

Local Responses to the English Reformation

Local Responses to the English Reformation

Local Responses to the English Reformation

Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan

Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style

The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime

The Samurai Way of Baseball

The Blind Devotion of the People: Popular Religion and the English Reformation (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)