The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence

Make no mistake: While The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence is a critical examination of the dilemmas facing contemporary Japan, it is most emphatically not a work of Japan-bashing. Its scrupulous attention to history and to political economy makes clear that Japan's problems are the consequence not of putative Japanese peculiarities but of specific decisions and processes, on the one hand, and global structural forces, on the other...This book is indispensable for anyone interested in the implications of extraordinary economic success across the spectrum of social life anywhere in the world and therefore in the tantalizing possibilities of other East and Southeast Asian countries...As we stand at the threshold between the Cold War order and the twenty-first century, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence exemplifies the thoughtful investigation we all need if we are to proceed with our eyes open, refusing to surrender the vision of a just and humanely livable world. Norma Field, University of Chicago, author of In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: A Portrait of Japan at Century's End. Gavan McCormack was ahead of the news on the Kobe earth