A History of Japanese Religion, edited by Kazuo Kasahara

This book is described as well-written, well-organized and comprehensive with an easy to follow narrative, beginning with Japan's earliest period. The book covers major Buddhist and Shinto sects, Shugendo, Christianity and the "new religions" of the postwar era.

Shugendo has been described as beginning in the 700s and as an almagamation of animism and Old Shinto that absorbed some Taoism and Buddhism. At the beginning of the Meiji era it was banned as a superstition unfit for what was then considered to be the new, enlightened Japan.

Descriptions of religion in postwar Japan I found fun reading.

Text is 595 pages. And it has a good index. Sixteen authors are listed, all professors or former professors of Japanese universities.

The translators, Paul McCarthy and Gaynor Sekimori, create an appearance almost of one author. There is a little duplication in subject matter between authors at least in the last third or so of the book. The translators are skilled at writing for lay people.