Written in the typical American journo-style, where the conceptual framework somehow always seem stronger than the final text, but still one of its kind. I wish it was more encyclopedic, anthropological or fashioned as a manual. There are bits in this book that are probably not available anywhere else in the English literature on Japanese sansai, esp. the stories about technique and tradition told orally to the author in various peripheral villages of Japan, and for that I'm happy to have read it. I especially liked the chapter on the Ainu, who are an indigenous people to Hokkaido, and have kept the foraging culture most alive - not as the opposing symbols of opulence or hunger, as it is otherwise portrayed in the civilized world - but as features of everyday life. As foraging could be again.