Welcome to post-Bubble Tokyo. A miasma emanating from a waste transfer station hidden under a city park sickens local homeowners and tears a neighborhood apart. Smart, malevolent jungle crows menace passersby and lay waste to garbage bags. Fears of incinerator fumes and tainted spinach paralyze residents of a middle-class neighborhood. And all the while Tokyoites question who among them belongs and who does not. Peter Kirby's sensitive ethnography brings the new field of environmental anthropology to Japan. He grounds universal questions of waste and renewal in the specific context of a city and nation afflicted by economic malaise and social uncertainty. -David L. Howell, Professor of Japanese History, Harvard University