Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern Japan Book

Completely new to Japanese philosophy, and not much more familiar with "Eastern" philosophy in general, I thought this was a solid introduction. I thought the last couple chapter dealing with Japan and modernity and the subsequent obsession with Hegel and Heidegger; and later on the realization of similarities between Buddhist and Deleuzian thought, as well as the similar distaste/critique of logocentrism with Japanese culture and Derrida.

The Japanese philosophers were pretty interesting, I think the most interesting was Nishida Kitaro, even if his political passivity was regrettable. I wasn't too interested in the chapter on Confucianism. I don't have much of an interest in Confucianism, honestly. But the prior chapter on Japanese Buddhism was pretty good.

It might be good to have a general timeline of Japanese history to totally get everything (they presume knowledge of a couple things), but they contextualized things well enough I thought. I'd recommend this to anyone new and interested in Japanese philosophy