Science, Technology and Society in Contemporary Japan

• Part I. The Japanese Model of R & D: 1. Basic versus applied research: the role of corporate laboratories and universities; 2. Cooperation versus competition: Miti's R & D projects and Japan's science cities; Part II. Science and Technology for Economic Growth: 3. Quality versus quantity: the automobile industry; 4. Technology versus commercial feasibility: nuclear power and electric utilities; 5. Consumerism and development versus the environment; Part III. The International Dimension: 6 Domestic development versus importation of technology: the aerospace industry and the FS-X fighter plane controversy; 7 Domestic technology versus the export of technology; Part IV. Science and Technology for the People? 8. Information society versus controlled society; 9. Women versus men in the science and technology workforce; 10. National interest versus local interests: the construction of Narita airport; 11. The patient versus the doctor: changes in medical care and attitudes to the body.

'As late as August 1998, Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi was unaware of the Y2K bug. That the leader of one of the world's most technologically advanced nations should have been ignorant of such a serious problem may come as a surprise. But it is one of many contained in a new book, Science, Technology, and Society in Contemporary Japan. Did you know, for example, that Japan has the worst dioxin contamination in the world? Or that the Japanese spend twice as much on prescription drugs as on rice? The warts-and-all picture of Japan that emerges from the book is very different from the glistening high-tech stereotype. It is painted by Morris Low, a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, and two Japanese co-authors, Shigeru Nakayama, the preeminent historian of Japanese science, and his former student, Hitoshi Yoshioka' New Scientist