A book about Japanese who are forgotten by an author who, in English, is unknown: In making this book available to those of us illiterate in Japanese, translator Jeffrey Irish has done us a tremendous service. Anyone interested in how things used to be in rural Japan (and in some places, to differing extents, still are) will want to read ethnologist Tsuneichi Miyamoto's accounts of his travels on foot up and down the archipelago, and will relish the stories he gathered. Japanese peasants, we learn, traveled more than we might have thought, were more promiscuous than we might have imagined (especially if we haven't read Pink Samurai: Nicholas Bornoff draws heavily on Miyamoto's work) and lived lives that are fascinating in many, many ways. The Forgotten Japanese, a fine example of history from below, goes onto the short shelf of essential books about Japan.