In this English translation of a semi-classic study, readers have the opportunity to explore the manner in which both credentialism and the various levels of the modern education system have developed in Japan. Professor Ikuo Amano, the author of extensive works on Japanese education and examination systems, takes the reader through a detailed analysis of the process by which education and academic qualifications have become the crucial factors in determining social position. Using Japan as a concrete example of an industrial society thoroughly permeated by credentialism, Amano's book makes explicit the relationship between social selection and education, and, in so doing, points the way to why credentialism has come to dominate industrial societies. The book also includes a comparative consideration of the development of education, qualification, and selection mechanisms in both Japan and Europe. (Series: Japanese Society)

This groundbreaking work draws on a vast range of research into human sexuality to demonstrate that homosexuality is not a phenomenon limited to a small minority of society, but is an aspect of a complex sexual harmony that the human race inherited from its animal ancestors. Through a survey of the patterns of sexual expression found among animals and among societies around the world, and an examination of the functional role homosexual behavior has played among animal species and human societies alike, the author arrives at some provocative conclusions: that a homosexual or bisexual phase is a normal part of sexual development, that same-sex relations play an important balancing role in regulating human reproduction, that many societies have institutionalized homosexual traditions in the past, and that the harsh condemnation of homosexuality in Western society is a relatively recent phenomenon, unique among world societies throughout history. This well researched and meticulously documented book is the first that integrates into a coherent picture the startling revelations about human sexuality coming from the recent work of sexual researchers, psychologists, anthropologists and historians. The view that emerges, of an ambisexual human species whose complex sexual harmony is being thwarted by the imposition of an artificial understanding of nature, represents a new way of thinking about sex.

Internationally respected scholar Professor Azyumardi Azra examines the transmission of Islamic reformism from the Middle East to Indonesia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Explores the origins and foundations of music education across five continents.

The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition A Penguin Classic Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern readers. Originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan in the tenth century, the Shahnameh is among the greatest works of world literature. This prodigious narrative tells the story of pre-Islamic Persia, from the mythical creation of the world and the dawn of Persian civilization through the seventh-century Arab conquest. The stories of the Shahnameh are deeply embedded in Persian culture and beyond, as attested by their appearance in such works as The Kite Runner and the love poems of Rumi and Hafez. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.