Description
Book SynopsisAnalyses how, from her training in Japan in the mid-1930s to her death in Iowa in 1980, Hawayo Takata built a trans-Pacific network that connected Japanese American labourers on Hawai’i plantations to social elites in Tokyo, Hollywood, and New York; middle class housewives in American suburbs; and tree planters in the mountains of British Columbia.
Trade ReviewThis clear-eyed and exceptionally well-organized study of transnational spiritual therapies will be a revelatory work for specialists and general audiences alike interested in the rise of "new age" phenomena, beliefs, and practices in the mid- to late twentieth century. One of its key insights, that transnational spiritual therapies engage in "particular universalism," (i.e., privileging the cultures and values of the "original" locale while claiming universal applicability), which can result in an erasure or occlusion of influences from outside the original locale, is potentially very useful for studies of a wide range of cultural phenomena." - Nancy Stalker, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
"This work will be appreciated by many audiences, including those interested in new religious movements, Japanese religions,
imin studies (Japanese culture as it emigrates), Asian American religions, and transnational cultures." - Brett Esaki, University of Arizona
