“Fudo Industry” by Akiyoshi Shimura

We would like to send you a complimentary book.

This is to ask for your permission to send a complimentary
book “Fudo Industry (fudo sangyo), which epitomizes
the life-long scholarly work and thinking of Katsue Misawa.
Katsue Misawa (1885 – 1937) was a geographer
and a teacher, who established Fudo geography.”
written by Akiyoshi Shimura.

ISBN 9784990987602

We would like to send you the complimentary book.
Approval of this request would be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours,

Author Akiyoshi Shimura’s words

Introduction

This book is the first English translation of Fudo Industry (fudo sangyo),
which epitomizes the life-long scholarly work and thinking of Katsue Misawa.
Katsue Misawa (1885-1937) was a geographer
and a teacher, who established fudo geography.
Nobody else, bef
ore or since, established academic
studies focusing on fudo, whether in Japan or abroad.

So what is Fudo Industry?
It is the practical development of fudo thinking, based on the idea
that human beings, ourselves, live in fudo.
According to Misawa, fudo is the contact surface
between the bottom of the atmosphere and the top layer of the ground.
Fudo is neither climate nor ground, but is created by the contact of the two.
And the character of this contact surface in each locality is its fudo-ness.
Fudo-ness is manifested in the local fauna, flora and human activities, which have one center and exist as a united and perfect whole.

Misawa sees the wholeness of nature.
His thinking is inherently ecological, as well as progressive and timeless.

Misawa’s works are the most significant achievement in 20th century Japanese geography.
In addition to the study of fudo geography, he left a large amount of original and pioneering research, on subjects including microclimates,
local wind patterns, windbreak trees, underground thermal water flows around Suwa, and sunspot activities, and much more.

Fudo Industry is his attempt to apply his vast knowledge of fudo geography to industry.
The fundamental proposition of Fudo Industry is the encouragement of ecologically sound life-styles and industries in the most practical ways.

Though his examples are centered around his beloved homeland of Nagano prefecture (Shinshu) in Japan,
fudo exists everywhere on the earth, both in small scale, such as within a house, and large areas exceeding the extent of a country.
Fudo Industry offers a large scope of suggestions for solving local issues by discovering the fudo and utilizing its power.

Today we are in urgent need of constructing a sustainable society.
In order to do so we must leave short-term profit behind and focus our attention on creating a society based on the re-circulation of resources.
Misawa tells us it can be achieved only by industries based on the law of circulation within the ecosystem, in other words, the fudo industry.
It should be noted that the fudo industry he talked about is an industry that utilizes the strength of the fudo in nature,
not the industry based on an artificially created kind of fudo.
He criticizes those industries that go against the local fudo-ness, severely and without any compromise.

Fudo Industry beautifully integrates theory and practice.
Opening the pages of Fudo Industry, one will hear the voice of a sage, like an inexhaustible spring, which see through the future of human kind.

1 February 2018