This book features conversations between Donald Keene, a preeminent scholar of Japanese literature, and Shiba Ryotaro, the author who continued to contemplate the human condition through his original and distinctive lens of history. These talks―which mainly explore the foundation of Japanese culture―took place in Japanese on three occasions in 1971, in the historic cities of Nara, Kyoto and Osaka. Drawing on their profound insights into Japan's relations with foreign cultures over the course of Japanese history, the two engage in a passionate discussion of their first-hand impressions and observations of Japanese culture.