I read a most interesting article, Made in Occupied Japan: The Birth of the Consumer Goods and Industrial Design Industries in Japan (1945-1955). It is written in French, sorry for non-francophones, but at least the photographs are valuable. I've been interested in material culture lately, and it was fascinating to read about the effects of the Occupation on Japanese culture and industry. I even asked a question here to expand the context, but unfortunately it was removed for being too broad. I'd appreciate recommendations for more socio-economic analysis of the Occupation and post-war reconstruction in Japan.

Two weeks ago I picked up Richard Salomon's Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara. Since then I have read it twice. It isn't particularly long or dense, but neither is it light reading, so having read it twice speaks to the readability of the writing and the appeal of the subject. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The book is an annotated set of translations from Gandharan fragments set to serve as an introduction to Gandharan literature. On the whole, it succeeds in doing that through the strength of its commentary on the texts and the history provided. However, it assumes a fairly strong knowledge of Buddhist literature on the whole, especially with regards to references and terminology. Fortunately, Salomon admits this and notes that the group this is targeted at should already be quite familiar with Buddhism. However, I note that perhaps more discussion on the implications of the texts and more information on their discovery might help contextualize them for the uninformed. As it stands, Salomon seems unaccustomed to writing for more general audience.

As for the translations themselves, I dont speak Gandharan nor do I have access to his sources, so I can't check them. However, they are translated in a way that seems surprisingly readable for fragments. He manages to capture the differing voices of the texts and scribes and the distinction between formal texts, treatises, and notes. This is important for the sake of comparison with parallel texts and to convey the tone overall. Thankfully, his texts manage to still be somewhat literal which brings out the differences more clearly. That said, they are still fragments, so there are limitations with that, sometimes Salomon has to guess at what the fragments might say which could potentially limit scholarly value as it isn't always clear why he chose to use that particularly word or line. On the other hand, anyone expecting something complete and organized will be somewhat disapointed as the longest translated text is only about 10 pages in English.

The selection of texts covers a wide spectrum of literature, from Sūtra, to Jataka, to Abidharma, to commentary. This presents a broad picture of Gandharan literature and well represents the diversity of the corpus. Most have seen translations elsewhere, some more complete due to the survey style of this book vs the more focused translations elsewhere, but nearly all have been re-edited and some are brand new. Perhaps the most interesting translation is that of the * Many Buddhas Sutra* or the Bahubuddhaka Sūtra which may show an early development in Pure Land. There is also a reliquary inscription which provides a detailed transcription and translation, which is a great insight.

Overall, I would say that the book is great but suffers from the issue that many "introductory" texts to more niche areas of scholarship fall into. It is too broad for hardcore academics to find necessary but too niche to serve as a general introduction. However, scholars may still find certain sections useful and the book does give plenty of explanation if you do a little side research. I would reccomend this for people with an interest in e Early Buddhism, undergrads in religious or Buddhist studies ( maybe historians of India and Pakistan as well), and more advanced scholars looking for a broad introduction to current research on Gandhara.

I just finished Abraham Rabinovich's The Yom Kippur War. It was engaging and thorough, but also very obviously written by an Israeli journalist; practically all of the sources were Israeli, all of the focus was on the Israeli perspective, and it had a very narrative feel, with a lot of reliance on the subjective opinions of primary sources (to the detriment of figures who weren't around to give interviews after the war). It was a fun read, but it left me hankering for something a little more historical in its approach; does anybody know any good histories of the war (or any Arab-Israeli war), especially ones that give more weight to the Arab perspective? I haven't been exposed to much in the way of Israeli history that didn't emerge from Israel itself.

Just finished Ihrig's Ataturk in the Nazi Imagination.

Overall I think he does an excellent job of supporting his thesis that the Ottoman Empire, and more importantly the ethno-nationalist Turkish Revolution, were a major influence on Nazi ideologues up until Berlin fell. Exceptionally well written, coherent, and really challenges the historiography in a manner akin to Browning or Lower.