Western readers will have come to know about mingei (folkcraft) theory through The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972), the English potter Bernard Leach’s adaptation of a number of essays by his friend, the philosopher and crafts theorist Yanagi Soetsu, who is the principal subject of Yuko Kikuchi’s book. Or, if such readers happen to be potters themselves, they might have learned the basics of Japanese folkcraft theory from Leach’s...