mately 108 million Japanese are adherents of Shintoism (Paxton, 1989). Thus, approximately 88 percent of the Japanese popula tion share the same religious orientation. Buddhism is not incompatible with Shintoism, and approximately 93 million Japanese practice Buddhism (Paxton, 1989). Obviously, a sig nificant overlap exists between the country's Shinto and Bud dhist adherents. Rather than divide the country's population, however, the Shinto/Buddhist overlap further unifies the coun try, unlike the divisions between Protestants and Catholics which plague the British Isles.
While a variety of folkways and accents are found in Japan, these differences are not causes of divisions within the 3population. A sharp division among the population along lan guage lines, such as the division between Gaelic and English speakers in Britain, is not found in Japan.
The Soviet Union streches from Eastern Europe to Eastern Asia, and from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea. As a poli tical entity, the Soviet Union came into existence in 1922 (Paxton, 1989), although between the 1917 revolution and 1922, Soviet Russia effectively controlled the lands which were later incorporated into the Soviet Union.
Most of the territory included within its borders, plus additional lands, were a part of the country under the Tsarist Empire which preceded the Soviet Union. Finland and Poland, for instance, although they were parts of the Tsarist Empire, were not included in the new Soviet Union. Several other coun tries, which today are a part of the Soviet Union, were absorbed by the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1940. Georgia, Moldavia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, for instance, became independent political entities upon the break up of the Austro Hungarian Empire following the First World War. By 1922, Georgia and Moldavia had been absorbed into the Soviet Union; Georgia by way of a Russian invasion, which had been conducted to put down a ...