In my final year of University, to complete my Japanese degree, I wrote a dissertation titled :

Why did the fox become such a prominent religious icon in Japan, and why did a similar phenomenon not occur in China?

Enamoured by the numerous Inari shrines found throughout Japan, with their multitudes of white fox statues and thousands of Torii sweeping across entire hilltops, and my love of old Chinese tales dealing with foxes, this subject was only fitting.

I recently re-read the dissertation, and, realising that it was still a good read, decided to put it online for everyone's enjoyment (if you're into that sort of thing at least). In the interests of time and sanity, I've not included the appendices (which were simply charts of the various periods of Chinese and Japanese history, and as such can easily be found elsewhere online), and I've currently not included the Japanese and Chinese characters that went alongside some of the romanised names, tho I may add them in again at some point in the future. The Abstract (brief summary of the entire dissertation) is also not included.

The rest, however, is exactly as it was written. Use the menu bar on the left to take yourself through, starting with the introduction. Enjoy!