Japanese Industrialization and Its Social Consequences

Written in 1976, the book features a collection of research papers by Japanese and American economists, that look at the industrialisation of Japan, from the mid 1800s to the 1970s. They study the changes in Japanese society that these engendered. The papers are not light reading. They emphasise a quantitative analysis, replete with tables of economic data. Key industries are studied. Notably shipbuilding and the general trading companies. Both were heavily export oriented, and contributed significantly to Japan's meteoric growth after World War 2. But today's reader looking at the book will be struck by the absence from the study of the automotive and electronics companies. While these certainly existed at the time of writing, their greatest expansions came later.