Taking mainly Japanese and other Asian case studies as examples, Ogino examines the motivations behind the preservation of objects and sites considered to be of cultural significance. Using mainly the perspectives of Japanese approaches to cultural heritage, the book critiques the European logic of cultural heritage enshrined by UNESCO. It contrasts a Western emphasis on monuments and sites, with an Asian emphasis on more intangible forms of heritage, which place less emphasis on a linear view of time. More practically, the authors also analyse the positive and negative impacts that UNESCO-listed status has had on sites in Asia, including Angkor Wat, Nagasaki, and Lijiang. Finally, they address fundamental questions about who gets to decide what counts as cultural heritage, and what the underlying rationale is for actively preserving heritage in the first place. This books is a thoughtful and provocative analysis of issues that will be of interest to sociologists, as well as scholars and students of cultural heritage.

In Scams and Sweeteners, author Masahiro Ogino presents his sociological reflections on fraudulent acts, which are preformed in the space that is not governed by social norms. In this ambitious study, he attempts to develop a theory of what he calls a "society of zero sociability" on the basis of Japanese, French, German, Swiss, Italian, and American cases. He argues that "there is no clear delineation between friendship and respect, and gift-giving and scams, in degree-zero society. There is no differentiation between a premeditated scam and the intention to give a gift, and one could easily become the other, so that a situation may seem like a scam but could easily seem like an example of gift giving. There is a need for sociological theory focusing on [this] primordial world."