[Seidensticker] has written a kind of cultural anatomy of the metropolis, embracing its folkways, its architecture, its street speech, its crime lore, its entertainment, its art.
-- New Yorker

James Joyce once declared that if turn-of-the-century Dublin were to vanish from the face of the earth it could be rebuilt on the basis of Ulysses. In Tokyo Rising, Edward Seidensticker seems to have exercised a similar, nonfictional ambition...Seidensticker's history of Tokyo is a loving elegy to a lost city.
-- Jay McInerney New York Times Book Review

The most distinguished living celebrator of Tokyo in the English language...When the city has been transformed yet again, some writer will feel the deepest nostalgia. One may only hope that he or she will express it with the wit and style of...a Seidensticker.
-- Ian Buruma New York Review of Books

Rich, fascinating cultural geography...Low City, High City and Tokyo Rising are guidebooks to an unforgettable journey.
-- Bloomsbury Review

Instead of an economic or sociologic determination, [Seidensticker] focuses on the effect upon society of the disappearance of this theater building, that café, those geisha houses, markets, and other landmarks, and their replacement stores, subways, and so on... Packed with original material and insights, [this book is] invaluable to scholars, students, and Tokyophiles.
-- Kirkus Reviews

[This] vibrant, intimately detailed volume...is much more than a portrait of Tokyo; in good measure, it is a serendipitous social history of modern Japan.
-- Publishers Weekly