| James D. Houston | IN THE RING OF FIRE A Pacific Basin Journey |
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IN THE
RING OF FIRE
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"It is ... historical and cultural interactions that Houston illuminates
beautifully with his descriptive skills and effortless prose. The book is
a series of telling vignettes, each one building toward a sense of the new
Pacific community that is emerging from decades of immigrant wanderings
and imperialistic warfare." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Jim Houston writes about his adventures in the Pacific Rim with sensitivity, courage, and a sense of wonder ... contagious." In the Ring of Fire explores the cultural intercourse between Eastern and Western regions around the world's largest ocean. This is the realm we now call the "Pacific Rim," a name that "turns our seemingly boundless ocean into an enormous wheel, a mandala of interconnected places." As he travels through Japan, Indonesia, Micronesia, Hawaii, and his native California he gathers the threads that bind the East and West, from resourceful Hawaiians in California during the Gold Rush days to the modern Zen visionary Shunryu Roshi, whose ashes were divided on both sides of the ocean — symbolic of the emerging pan-Pacific culture that Houston heralds here. |
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JAMES D. HOUSTON is the author of numerous novels and works of nonfiction, including |
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