"A nuanced study that is historically informed while remaining timely . Rots' prose is clear, his attention to detail, history, and nuance replete, and his interventions timely. Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan is a trans-disciplinary work that sheds light on subject matter often mischaracterized by scholars without the proper background." - Journal of Religion in Japan "A significant and valuable contribution to the fields of religious studies, Japanese studies, Shinto studies, and Asian studies generally . [It] provides the kind of thorough, fair, and at times sharply critical exposé of contentious issues pulsing through current shrine Shinto and Japanese nationalism." - Contemporary Japan "Provides an insightful approach to understanding Shinto's discursive profile in contemporary Japan . Effectively combining discourse analysis with ethnographic field work, Rots argues that Shinto has shed its strong association with prewar militarism by embracing conceptions of 'nature' and 'environmental sustainability.'" - Journal of Japanese Studies "[T]his book does full justice to its title and succeeds in presenting the first systematic and exhaustive study not only to discuss the Shinto environmentalist paradigm as an intellectual object but also to trace its concrete development in contemporary Japan.

Through his focus on sacred shrine forests, Rots provides a finely nuanced portrait of the ecological discourses and practices produced by a wide range of individuals and organizations related to the Shinto world." - Monumenta Nipponica "[W]ell researched, highly informative, and thought provoking." - Asian Ethnology "A comprehensive overview . [Aike P. Rots] focuses not only on what these paradigms say but also what they leave out, and how they relate to actual practices and campaigns at the local and national levels. He is generous with his sources but pays attention to the distance between their rhetoric and reality." - Reading Religion " The book does a great service for acknowledging religion's crucial role in our thinking and caring about the environment. Warmly recommended.

" - Religious Studies Review.