This book explores Japan's relationship with Asia and the world, examines contemporary Japanese thinking about Japan's "others" and how this impacts on local discourses about uniqueness, modernity, internal minorities and "postmodern" conceptions of Japanese culture, religion and psychic make-up. Taking local knowledge seriously, the author pursues the "centrality of the emotions" as a viable avenue for understanding Japanese society and enriches the scope of cultural studies and sociology of Japanese capitalism by presenting a comparative and non-Western perspective.