The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation Book

Few Americans have examined carefully the nation whose economy and industry is bound up with their own, whose future will inescapably shape theirs--Japan, that is. Dutch journalist Karel van Wolferen does the job, and very well indeed, depicting a Japan alternately awed and disgusted by the world beyond its shores, governed by a puppet emperor in the service of the zaikaijin, a gerontocracy of businessmen who control the national economy, just as they have done for generations. Their hierarchy is reinforced by the fear that, as in 1945, hostile powers will not only overpower the Japanese economy but denature the Japanese people, introducing foreign concepts of democracy and even the specter of an "impure race." Although Van Wolferen balances his account by highlighting what he regards as positive Japanese traits, including thrift, respect for elders, industriousness, and self-control, The Enigma of Japanese Power remains a controversial text in the nation it assays to describe with discomforting accuracy.Read More

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  • Product Description

    This is a survey of every aspect of Japanese life, political and economic, social and psychological, unravelling the enigma of Japan in the modern world revealing that Japan's amassed wealth has brought little benefit to the ordinary Japanese. The author shows how the docile conformity , near absence of litigation and lack of individualism - characterising Japanese society and culture - originates in political purpose. Japan has the institutions of a parliamentary democracy, yet is effectively a one-party state and the power of the Japanese prime minister is less than that of any other head of government in Asia or the West. Japan is governed to all appearances with no centre of accountable power. Karl van Wolferen has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Japan for some quarter of a century. Last year he won the Dutch equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.

  • 0333443217
  • 9780333443217
  • Karel Van Wolferen
  • 1 April 1989
  • Palgrave Macmillan
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 504
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