The subtitle informs us that this is a "casebook" — that is, not a monograph on the Sorge spy ring, but rather a miscellany of pieces around that topic. Happily, the assembled parts are not the hodgepodge they might have been, but instead a kaleidoscope of views that resonate well together. In his introduction, editor J. Thomas Rimer explains that he wants the casebook to provide "an account of the lasting cultural significance [of] events associated with the notable case of Richard Sorge, the Soviet spy active in Japan before and during World War II."

There follows an extract from Chalmers Johnson's book on Sorge and fellow spy Hotsumi Ozaki, "An Instance of Treason," in which he wonders whether "treason is a meaningful concept when the leadership of a nation has fallen into the hands of men who are driving it toward its own destruction."

There is a selection of the letters Ozaki wrote from prison to his wife and daughter; film scholar Keiko McDonald considers movies based on the Sorge/Ozaki affair; and we have Junji Kinoshita's play, "A Japanese Called Otto."