Abstract
Sociological textbooks in Japan are charming to Chinese sociology which survived in 1979 after longer-than-twenty-years' interval. Textbooks written by Ken'ichi Tominaga and Hiroyuki Torigoe, which the author read as a student, are systematically written, although the former attempts to grasp patterns common to human societies from the perspective of general theory and the latter seeks particular characteristics of the Japanese society using culturalist approaches.
Japanese sociology still displays the sociological traits of a late-starting non-Western society, and its textbooks are basically the products of its dialogue with Western sociology and its localization toward the Japanese intellectual climate. To the author's regret, however, Japanese textbooks rarely refer to Asian societies, although it is strongly expected that unique concepts that are conceived in Japan will be able to explain social phenomena in Asian societies, including China.
